


Ziva David: Redemption

by storytell18 (theyarnspinner)



Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-03-26 13:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3852913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyarnspinner/pseuds/storytell18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thought she could move on, leave her past behind. Unfortunately, the demons of the past always come back to haunt you, especially if you're Ziva David, and you're thrust back into the business you cannot get out of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Record

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first NCIS story. The story deals with Ziva, who after the events of "Past, Present, and Future" is a disgraced, depressed, reclusive alcoholic hiding in Israel, her mind haunted by the events that had happened in the past year and desperately missing the one man alive that she loves – Anthony DiNozzo. However, she is given a chance for redemption when Mossad director Orli Elbaz requests her for a very unique assignment – to go undercover in a a terror network that rivals the Brotherhood of Doubt in power, and one that has set its sights on NCIS as a result of the capture and death of Parsa.
> 
> The overall structure for the story will be a lot like a standard episode of NCIS, complete with the iconic foofs (the black and white shots just after and just before a commercial break) as bookends for each chapter, a bit of foreshadowing for what lies ahead. While Ziva's undercover operation and her desire for redemption will make up the main story, the entire NCIS team (Gibbs, Tony, McGee, Bishop, Abby, Ducky, Palmer, and Vance, plus others) will appear as well in side-stories of their continuing investigations and how it begins to tie into Ziva's undercover mission, bringing Ziva closer to the family she had left behind.
> 
> Now, let's begin the story.

**Foof. Ziva looks at her guest in shock as she slowly takes the papers being handed to her.**

January 2014. It's been eight months since Ziva David resigned from NCIS, a measure taken by herself and fellow members of the Major Crime Response Team Anthony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee to protect their boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs from a Department of Defense investigation led by the ambitious Richard Parsons.

Within the next week of resignation, Ziva had flown back to Israel to think things over when an attempt was made on her life by the Brotherhood of Doubt, a terrorist cell led by Pakistani radical Benham Parsa. It was not hard for Ziva to dispatch the gunmen but it did wound her and she had recovered by July.

Unfortunately, the attack and its aftermath had changed Ziva. She had lost one of her few friends upon her learning that Ziva killed Ari Haswari, her lover and Ziva's half-brother. So, she went towards the house in which she grew up for isolation and to finally sort out what she really wanted.

In October, DiNozzo, who had spent months looking for her, finally found her, but in an extremely painful decision for Ziva, she decided to stay behind in Israel, feeling unable to return to Washington DC after all the events that had transpired starting with the death of her father, Mossad Director Eli David.

Fortunately for Ziva, her dispatching of Parsa's assassins made him realize that a regular hitman operation would be useless and since she was no longer on the grid - no cell phone, no credit card, no laptop, no electronics, which made tracking her down nigh impossible. And her father had left her a sizable trust fund (over 15 million Euros) courtesy of his days in Mossad, so she didn't need to get a job for a while - she could quite possibly be able to retire right then and there.

However, she was far from content with her current life, tedious and isolated. She once again had nobody, no family, no friends, not even Mossad knew where she was.

While she wanted security, it came with the cost of total privacy. As the hours ticked by in her empty home, Ziva realized that she was not hiding from Parsa, but rather from everybody she had come to care about.

It had all started back in 2005, almost nine years ago, when Ziva, under the orders of her father, murdered Ari Haswari, a rogue double agent and gained Gibbs's trust so she could join NCIS as a liaison officer. She spent around three years under Gibbs's tutelage before she was temporarily reassigned back to Mossad in order to help solve a mole problem in NCIS.

However, while on assignment with Mossad, Ziva began a long-distance romance with one of her fellow Mossad Kidon (assassin) comrades, Michael Rivkin, which piqued Tony's curiousity when Michael came stateside on assignment for Mossad, killing several members of a terrorist cell in Los Angeles that were wanted for NCIS questioning.

This wasn't the tip of the iceberg, as even though Gibbs had ordered Rivkin to stay away from Ziva, he still continued to operate in the states, trying to spy on a high-profile poker game, or a "intelligence summit" with the directors of several federal agencies and the Secretary of the Navy, resulting in the death of a federal agent.

Tony figured it out and confronted Rivkin after he killed another terrorist and took his computer, ending with Tony fatally shooting Rivkin in Ziva's apartment soon before Ziva herself arrived, resulting in massive tensions between NCIS and Mossad.

Unable to trust Tony, Ziva resigned her position as liasion officer and returned full time as Michael's replacement on a mission to terminate the terrorist leader Rivkin had been gathering information on - Saleem Ulmann. A mission that went south when Ziva ended up the only member of the team that could continue, and was captured after being embarrassingly outnumbered (around forty or fifty guards against one highly trained Mossad operative). While Ziva was good, she was overpowered and spent the next several months being interrogated and tortured in any way thought possible by Ulmann for information on NCIS.

Mossad didn't rescue her from the camp, but thanks to the dedication of NCIS, Tony and McGee infiltrated the camp and rescued Ziva from Ulmann. Following these events, Ziva resigned from Mossad only for her father to try to pin the murder of a Marine she had encountered traveling to the camp on her. Upon being cleared, Ziva cut her ties with Mossad and her father, officially becoming an official NCIS agent and a citizen of the United States.

Her past, though, refused to stay buried as Eli arrived in DC over a year later for a conference with NCIS Director Leon Vance, dealing with the mission that had launched their careers, and came back to try to kill them. Surviving it, Eli partially reconciled with Ziva before returning to Mossad.

This would not be the last time they met as two years later, in 2013, Eli supposedly returned for the Shabbat, but it was actually arranging a peace with Arash Kazmi, his old friend and Iranian equivalent, and had inadvertently killed a journalist who discovered he was here.

Shortly after Ziva confronted him about the murder, a gunman proceeded to assassinate Eli as well as Jacqueline, the wife of Director Vance, leaving Ziva angry and heartbroken, feelings that only grew when Eli's protege, Deputy Director Ilan Bodnar was revealed to have hired the hitman.

When she was not on duty at NCIS, Ziva spent her free time using all of her contacts to track down Bodnar, in spite of several government agencies (namely the CIA and Homeland Security) warning her not to, eventually finding him trying to flee to South Africa with a fortune of uncut diamonds, and murdering him by throwing him off a ship he was trying to escape from, which NCIS labeled as self-defense when she tried to apprehend him.

This incident led to the investigation of NCIS that resulted in her resignation and departure from the life she had once known.

Now, completely alone, Ziva spent her days tending around her house and drinking alcohol at an unnerving pace as she tried to wash away the painful memories that now haunted her, the good and the bad, trying to become a new person.

But, no matter how drunk she got (she frequently downed an entire bottle a day), her mind still remembered everything. Her ability to sleep was impeded by these memories, surfacing themselves as nightmares of things that could have been, normally pleasant dreams that disturbed her to no end. And her alcohol consumption was definitely not helping her sleep.

It was another day for the ever depressed Ziva, and more than once, she had pondered suicide. She pulled out her .38 hammerless revolver, her old back-up gun from NCIS and opened the cylinder, unloading all the rounds inside save for one.

Speaking to herself, she muttered as she pointed to an unloaded chamber with her thumb, "He loves me." Moving her finger to the only chamber with a live bullet in it, she continued, "He loves me not."

Putting the cylinder back in her Smith & Wesson, Ziva spun it to an unknown chamber, of which she could not tell if the chamber had a bullet or not. Pointing the gun underneath her chin, Ziva pulled the trigger, waiting to see if her life was about to end.

And just like always, the gun clicked empty as no bullet was present in the chamber. Tossing the gun away, Ziva slumped down on the chair she was sitting in and began tearing up over everything that had happened to her, that nothing would be right in the end, that she was utterly irredeemable.

However, fate had something else in store for Ziva rather than misery.

* * *

 

It had been yet again another monotonous day for Ziva David as the ex-assassin turned federal agent, as she had woken up from her slumber on a half-made bed. Ever since Tony had returned to the states, she hadn't felt much need to make it as she could seldom stay asleep anyways and there was nobody there.

Slipping out of her clearly worn blue nightshirt and pants, Ziva went to take her shower, washing off her body and taking care of her hair, which had since grown down to her waist from months without a cut.

After the shower, Ziva got dressed in a simple black shirt and jeans, which evidently had been used several times without a wash. There was a lot Ziva was no longer doing since she basically abandoned everything about her life.

Now dressed, Ziva went to her kitchen, pulling out a pita bread and a bottle of wine, pouring herself a glass as she began taking bites out of the bread. She would have to go shopping soon - she was almost out of food.

After breakfast, Ziva walked out onto the patio and simply rested, waiting for what was next in her increasingly vanishing world, quickly turning into the house she grew up in - and the painful memories that accompanied her life.

As the hours ticked by, she soon retreated back into the house, taking care to lock the door behind her, keeping a handgun on her at all times. She may be retired, but she didn't want to be caught off guard. As she headed into the house, she returned to the kitchen and grabbed the open bottle of wine, taking another swig before setting it down.

Taking a seat on her chair, she simply looked at the empty bottles of alcohol laying around the floor. _I have to clean these up - I do not want to be walking on broken glass_.

As she simply sat, she began staring back at her wallet, which had been open and revealed a picture of her and Tony back during their undercover operation at the Marine Corps Birthday gala. She gave a ghost of a smirk to it as she remembered some of the fondest moments she had with her companion "hairy butt". How the two fooled the FBI agents watching them by appearing to have sex (though, admittedly they did have sex, very real sex which even McGee could not refute as acting).

Then came the time inside of that shipping container - what a stupid idea in which they found themselves locked inside while getting cover from gunmen. Only through pure chance did they manage to make it out alive and catch those responsible.

She flash-forwarded to when she was beginning to see Michael Locke and how Tony suspected him of being the apprentice or copy-cat of serial killer Andrew Hoffman. Ziva never doubted his innocence and was proven right when Locke's fingerprint didn't match those found on the knife, but it resulted in her having to break it off with him as he could no longer trust her. Then came her disastrous affair with Rivkin, how she thought she loved him to point where she nearly killed Tony because of it. How foolish she was, and it nearly got her killed.

Now it came Ziva and Tony's assignments in Paris, where they never divulged who slept on the couch, if anyone, and lastly Berlin, where they went to apprehend Bodnar, but caught Yaniv Bodnar, Ilan's brother instead. It took Berlin to make Ziva realize that perhaps she was in love with Tony, truly in love with him, but she was not sure if he reciprocated.

His last time seeing her validated those feelings, but it was too late, leaving Ziva heartbroken.

As she reminisced about her lost flame, she began to sense that somebody was coming towards her. She raised from her chair and pulled out the SIG-Sauer P229 handgun she kept on her person, slowly and quietly heading for the door in which she was hearing the intruder.

She aimed her SIG at the doorway, slowly opening the door while keeping the gun ready, and yelled, "Hands where I can see them! Do it or I shoot!"

Suddenly, she felt the faint trace of a gun pointed at the back of her own head. The intruder remarked, "I'd have expected better, Ziva. You've gotten sloppy."

Ziva knew that voice and turned around to see who had come into her house, not flinching in the face of the gun now in her face. "Director Elbaz?" The intruder was Orli Elbaz, director of Mossad and successor to her father, the former director of Mossad up until his assassination.

"Nice to see you too Ziva." Elbaz lowered her Glock 17 and holstered it, proceeding to walk towards Ziva's couch holding a briefcase. Ziva asked her, "If you came in from behind, who came at the doorway?"

"Another Mossad officer who needed some experience. Come, sit."

Ziva lowered her own gun and headed towards her chair and sitting down in it, facing Orli Elbaz, asking, "What are you doing here? How did you even find this place?"

"We're Mossad, Ziva. We never keep our eyes closed. We've known where you've been for months."

"Tony?"

"We figured it out on our own and respected your privacy."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because of certain developments that have arisen." Elbaz opened the briefcase and soon revealed a mound of files and pictures inside. She began to explain as she pulled out the first picture, "Benham Parsa, leader of the Brotherhood of Doubt, the terrorist organization responsible for the assassination of Clayton Jarvis and the attempt on your life."

Ziva asked, "What is all of this about?" "Let me finish, and you won't have any questions. Anyway, Parsa had been running a low profile, conducting several attacks in the United States in cooperation with several corrupt businessmen. While Jarvis's murder made Parsa number one on the Navy's most wanted list, what sealed the proverbial deal was an attack on a Department of Defense gala."

"McGee had a girlfriend named Delilah, she was DoD. What happened to her?"

"From what we can make out, she was at the reception and while she survived, she was permanently paralyzed. Parsa managed to escape the country before the authorities could apprehend him. However, he was ultimately intercepted thanks to the work of Eleanor Bishop, an NSA analyst who had been assigned to work for NCIS."

"Gibbs?"

"He requested her. Bishop was an expert on Parsa, having studied him immensely, and been taunted by him just as much. Parsa was brought on board a Navy ship for interrogation, requesting Bishop to perform said interrogation, but he wanted her so he could finally finish her off, having become just as obsessed with her as she was of him. Gibbs killed Parsa before he could finish off Bishop."

"Okay, not that this story had been informative, but why are you telling me this?"

"One of our operatives in Pakistan discovered a massive terrorist organization, one that rivaled that of Parsa. With his death, said organization is beginning to claim power over the forces in the region. We're looking at a force north of twenty thousand men just in the Middle East. Their power will grow beyond our control, and will spread to the Americas. We need your help, Ziva."

"To do what?" Ziva was skeptical of Elbaz, unsure of just where this was going, though she had a vague idea of what exactly it was.

"Go undercover in the organization and bring it down. If they become too powerful, they will not be stopped. We could be looking at a third world war, nuclear war."

"Why me? Why not Eschel, Malachai, or Liat? I'm not Mossad anymore, remember?"

"That is true, but they are all occupied with other assignments. You were one of the best, Ziva. You're the only one that can succeed."

"What makes you so sure? I haven't been part of Mossad in close to five years."

Elbaz pulled out several more documents, revealing very familiar pictures. "If they succeed, their first targets will be NCIS." Ziva could only stare at the pictures of Gibbs, Tony, McGee, and Bishop at their homes, the photos having been taken at a distance. Then came pictures of Abby and Ducky, along with Palmer and Vance. She couldn't let anything happen to them, even if she wasn't NCIS anymore.

Elbaz handed some more documents to Ziva, noting, "The details of your assignment." She already knew that Ziva had accepted.

Ziva stared in shock at Elbaz as she slowly took the papers being handed to her.

**Foof.**

* * *


	2. Donkey Butt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Ziva finds herself having to retrain herself for her assignment, the NCIS team tracks down the killer of a Navy commodore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this section, I respond to reviews and offer information on the story to come. For the purposes of the story, Gibbs = Leroy Jethro Gibbs, DiNozzo = Anthony DiNozzo, McGee = Timothy McGee, Bishop = Eleanor Bishop, Abby = Abigail Sciuto, Ducky = Dr. Donald Mallard, Jimmy = Jimmy Palmer, Vance = Director Leon Vance, Orli = Director Orli Elbaz and Ziva = Ziva David. This will be how characters are referred to in the narrative - all bets are off in the dialogue, when full names or nicknames may be utilized. More character identifications will come in later chapters as new characters appear.
> 
> All of the chapters for this story will be named after Ziva-isms (idioms and expressions that Ziva messes up during the series).
> 
> Now, let's continue the story.

**Foof. Ziva stares without emotion at the man testing her.**

January 2014. It was another cold January day in Washington DC, with the wind chill firmly set. However, it would not interfere with the work at the Navy Yard, specifically that of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, or NCIS for short.

Inside the NCIS building, DiNozzo, McGee, and Bishop were all sitting in the bullpen, waiting for their next assignment from Gibbs. As Bishop worked on her laptop, sitting on the _desk_ that she was issued, McGee began, "So, Bishop. How have you found your first few days as an official Probationary Agent?"

Bishop replied, "Other than all the Probie-ing you and Tony have put me through, it's going relatively well."

"Yeah, well, that's just a part of being the new kid on the block. It took a few years for Tony to stop hazing me, and he definitely did it to Ziva more than a few times while she was probationary."

"What exactly would that be?"

"Menial labor, some underhanded tricks and pranks, doing the dirty work, stuff like that."

"Oh."

DiNozzo interrupted their conversation with, "Probie. Have you finished those files?" He had Bishop finishing up a couple of case reports that he hadn't "gotten around" to doing.

Bishop replied, "Not yet. Almost done though." Soon after, DiNozzo dropped a pile of files onto Bishop's chair, saying, "Good, you've got a few more to do."

Suddenly, they were interrupted by the leader of the group, Gibbs, who explained, "It'll have to wait. Grab your gear, we got a dead Naval officer in Baltimore."

The other members of the team soon grabbed their backpacks and investigative gear before following Gibbs into the elevator so they could go to Baltimore and investigate the dead Navy officer.

* * *

At the crime scene, McGee proceeded to use the fingerprint scanner to identify the victim. He said upon receiving the results, "Boss, meet Commodore Jennifer Harding, age thirty nine. One tour in Colombia, one tour in Singapore. Married, no children."

Gibbs asked McGee, "The husband?"

McGee checked Harding's service record before continuing, "Her husband is former Army Captain Gary Harding, age 43, now works as a mercenary-for-hire to NATO. From what I can see, he's currently operating in central Africa, been there the past month."

Tony walked up to Gibbs and said, "The neighbors wanted to see if Commodore Harding wanted to come over for a book club meeting. They checked the house and found the blood."

Shortly afterwards, Ducky and Jimmy arrived on the scene, with Ducky saying, "Hello, Commodore. Let's see what happened to you." Walking up to the victim, they saw she had fair white skin, brunette hair that went down to her elbows, and had a lot of blood pouring from her.

Examining the body, Jimmy noted, "Looks like one stab wound to the abdomen and then three to the heart."

Gibbs asked, "Palmer, why would somebody stab somebody three times in the heart and then once in the abdomen."

Ducky added, "I may be able to answer that one, Jethro. The wound to her abdomen didn't go through fully, just piercing the skin. The wounds to her heart, they passed through it. Most likely, we're looking for some kind of knife."

"Time of death?"

Using the liver probe, Ducky determined, "Just under seven hours ago. No defensive bruises, must not have expected the attack."

"Yeah, or she knew her attacker. Bring her back to the Navy Yard."

* * *

At a secret Mossad training center in southern Israel, Orli was waiting for Ziva to arrive, as the former Mossad assassin had said she would come on her own accord, not wanting to show any weakness by being dragged from her home to there. Of course, there came concerns that she didn't know the place, but she knew where it was - her father was the Director of Mossad.

At roughly nine hundred hours local time, Ziva drove up to the training center, getting out of her car. Orli commented, "Thought you weren't going to make it. You left less than two hours ago. Wouldn't have gotten here for another hour."

Ziva reminded her, "You have forgotten how I drive, haven't you?"

"Indeed I have. Come, we need to see if you still have the ability you did back a year or so."

Orli proceeded to walk into the facility, soon followed by Ziva, not sure of what was about to come next for her.

Walking to what appeared to be the medical office, Orli opened the door and Ziva walked inside, soon followed by the Mossad director. Orli explained, "We want to make sure you are physically clear to perform this operation. We'll be taking blood and urine samples along with performing a physical. We don't want you killing yourself because of some physical defect."

Ziva responded, "All right then. Fire away. The sooner we finish this, the better."

Orli injected a needle into Ziva's arm, proceeding to draw blood from the former Mossad officer. Ziva clenched her teeth in order to avoid giving away her pain - even now when she was found an alcoholic wreck, she refused to show weakness, even though it was plastered on her.

And this, Orli knew perfectly. Ziva definitely needed a kick-start if she was going to be able to go undercover. It wouldn't be very good if her alcoholism caused her to slip up in the operation and get her compromised and executed, or killed in a gunfight. Having Ziva ending up dead would not be something Orli wanted, especially given what she knew her predecessor, Eli David would have wanted.

Orli handed Ziva a cup and told her, "I think you know what to do." She took the cup and went off to the bathroom in order to perform her urine test, to see if she was still drunk or if she had any other substances in her system.

Once she had filled up the cup, she handed it to Orli, who then had it sent for analysis to determine Ziva's toxicology report.

As they waited for the report to come in, Orli beckoned Ziva to follow her, which she did, and the duo headed over to the gymnasium, where Orli would get to see if Ziva was physically capable of the tasks she was going to be up to for her undercover assignment.

As Ziva stepped onto the mat, Orli gave a whistle and Ziva's opponent came out and took a look at her. He was roughly six foot five and had plenty of muscles - he was very strong, and he was the opponent Ziva had to take down.

Orli explained, "Let's give you a physical test to see just how much you can still do. Begin."

The muscle ran up to Ziva, who sidestepped in order to dodge his first first. Ziva jumped onto the man, trying to push him onto the ground, a move that ultimately resulted in the thug grabbing onto Ziva's throat.

Ziva swung her foot repeatedly at the man's crotch, only to miss as the man pushed her away, smirking slightly as he enjoyed watching the former Mossad officer struggle.

After a minute, he proceeded to slam her right onto the ground and tackled her. The muscled man got up and walked away from Ziva as Orli walked over and commented, "Disappointing. He wouldn't have been a problem a decade ago. We've got a long way to go before you are ready for the mission."

Ziva looked at Orli skeptically, asking, "What are you insinuating? That I'm weak?"

Orli replied, "Yes. You allowed me to get the drop on you at your residence and now, you lost in the physical test. You've lost your edge and you need to get it back. We need to see just what else we need to improve on and retrain you in that so you can be ready."

Ziva followed the Mossad director to the firing range, which had nobody present but a single human-sized target downrange and a Jericho 941 handgun at the firing station. Orli beckoned, "Let's test your accuracy."

Walking up to the firing line, Ziva took aim with the Jericho before Orli ordered, "Empty the clip at the target."

Ziva did just that, firing every round in the chamber towards the paper target. Once the slide locked back, Ziva took a look at her shots. Roughly half of them landed in the head, with another third in the chest and a couple of misses. The response of the Mossad director was, "Not bad, but you need to improve on your speed. If you don't fire fast enough, it will all be over."

* * *

Back in Washington DC, the MCRT was going over what they knew about Commodore Harding to see if there was anything in there that could have resulted in her death.

Bishop explained, "Commodore Jennifer Harding was off of active duty and was currently running an accounting business on the side."

When Gibbs looked at Bishop very confused, McGee answered, "Commodore Harding was running the ledgers for the bases in Singapore and Colombia. Whenever she's not out of the country, she was a stay-at-home accountant. Customers came to her to ask for her help in managing their ledgers. Abby is going over Harding's computer, but from what it seems, she had several accounts she was working at the time of her death."

Gibbs added, "Guess one of them got her killed."

While Gibbs continued to look at Commodore Harding's picture, Vance walked into the bullpen to announce, "Agent Gibbs, Commodore Harding's husband, Captain Harding is coming online in MTAC in a few minutes. I'm sure he wants some answers about what happened to his wife."

Gibbs responded, "Okay then, Leon." Gibbs then walked out of the bullpen and hopped onto the staircase en route to MTAC, where he would converse with Captain Harding to see if there is anything he needs to know regarding the investigation into his wife's death.

Arriving at the door, Gibbs scanned his eye in the retinal scanner and was then granted access into the Multiple Threat Assessment Center. Walking towards the screen, Gibbs gave the signal for the MTAC operators to put Captain Harding on.

Gibbs greeted, "Hello, Captain Harding."

The captain replied, _"Agent, Gibbs, is it? Is it true? Is my wife dead?"_

"I'm afraid so. She's been dead since 0300 hours local time. Stabbed in the abdomen and heart. Know anybody that would do that?"

_"I know four with that style, including myself, and all four of us are right here in Tanzania. Arrived in late December, not scheduled to leave until early February."_

"Have you spoken to your wife lately?"

_"I last spoke to her four days ago. She mentioned she had been doing the numbers for somebody that just seemed off to her, and she was starting to fear for her own safety."_

"Her body lacked defensive bruises, indicating she didn't put up a struggle."

_"She resigned herself to her fate? That is as sure as hell not like Jen."_

"Or she knew her attacker. I'll tell you more when we know more." With that, Gibbs signaled to cut the feed and he proceeded to walk out of MTAC, en route to see what Ducky and Abby had found out.

Entering the elevator, Gibbs pressed it to go down to autopsy, where Ducky and Palmer were currently working on the body.

In the morgue, the duo were currently checking the victim's chest and abdomen to get a good idea of what the knife could have been.

Entering autopsy, Gibbs asked, "What do you got for me Duck?"

Ducky replied, "Ah, Jethro. As we thought, the cause of death came from blood loss as a result of her four wounds. The wound to the abdomen was the first injury that came and the three to the heart came after."

Palmer added, "Insurance to ensure that the commodore was dead."

Gibbs wondered, "But why would they only nick the abdomen? Why did they partially stab the abdomen before completely stabbing the knife?"

Suddenly, Abby ran into autopsy shouting, "Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs!"

Gibbs asked, "What is it, Abs?"

Abby replied, "I identified the knife used to kill the commander. Based on the striations in the incisions, I identified it as an Army K-Bar knife."

"Just like one Captain Harding would have. The killer was trying to frame the husband for murder."

"Oh, and there's more. The reason the wound to the abdomen was shallow was because the knife fell out after entering the abdomen. Add in the fact that there were no defensive wounds, and..."

Palmer surmised, "We're looking for a knife thrower?"

"Looks that way, Jimmy." From what Abby has said and Jimmy deduced, Gibbs could only think that this was yet another strange case. It says something when you've had multiple strange cases.

* * *

Over in Israel, Ziva was currently struggling in her evaluations. Clearly, being out of the business for eight months did not help her out as she lacked the level of skill she once had.

Now, it was her test of endurance. She had to hang onto an iron bar for as long as she possibly could. At one point in time, she had held the record for the longest time holding on the bar at 15 minutes 38 seconds, but the record now was held by Liat, Ziva's replacement after her departure from the agency, and her time was 16 minutes 7 seconds.

Right now, she had been on the bar for seven and a half minutes and Ziva began to feel that her hands were starting to slip from the bar. She refused to let up, though. She would last as long as possible, but it seemed like that there was little time remaining to hold on.

It seemed as if she was slipping away from the life she once knew the very same way she was starting to slip from the bar. She had to hold on, she had to get her skill back, and she had to successfully go undercover for the mission. Even though she was not with NCIS anymore, she still needed to protect them.

But first, she had to make sure she could protect herself and so she had to have the necessary physical condition. That meant she had to stay on as long as she could.

That meant she was able to hang onto the bar for another forty-five seconds before she finally gave out and her knees fell onto the ground, indicating that she had hit her maximum endurance at eight minutes fifteen seconds.

Another test she had disappointed in. She had truly fallen apart since she went off the grid. Now, she had to basically start from the beginning and rebuild her physique to what it once was.

Getting up from the ground, Ziva proceeded over to a nearby punching bag and began punching it as fast as she could, focusing on getting as fast in her arm movements as she possibly could. Once she had speed, then she would have to work on power.

As she punched the bag, memories of the past came up as the demons of her past shaped themselves on the bag. The countless murderers she had helped put away or eliminate while at NCIS, from campus police officer Samuel Tate (who had tried to rape Sarah McGee and then frame her for the murder of her ex-boyfriend) and ex-Army Ranger turned cartel gun Jason Paul Dean to Marine housewife turned porn star Jamie Carr (who killed her friend and then faked her own death) and bartender and currency thief Pat Gillespie. However, one face amongst them all stood out, the face of her father, Mossad Director Eli David.

The man who ordered her to murder her own half-brother because he had become a rogue agent. The man who sent Mossad operative (and her boyfriend at the time) Michael Rivkin to assassinate terrorists and used her to get intel. The man who left her for dead when she was captured by an African terrorist. The man who tried to have her framed for murder when she decided to leave Mossad. The man who killed a reporter who discovered his presence. The man who was murdered before he could reconcile with her. The man who was her only family remaining.

As Ziva began punching the bag, she began to think about all of the more atrocious deeds committed by her father. He fathered a bastard child and manipulated him to become his mole inside of al-Qaeda. He created a monster to fight terrorists. As she punched the bag, she soon began to slow, entering the midst of a complete mental breakdown. Everything she knew had been torn apart. In just one year, she lost her father and then basically tossed away NCIS from her life, and most of all, Anthony DiNozzo. She had nothing left, she had become hollow. And she was unsure if anything else could fill that gap.

Withdrawing herself from the bag, Ziva sat herself down on the ground, laying against a wall, staring up at the ceiling, trying to work herself through this. Could she actually go through with this operation? Was she ready to enter this operation? Did she feel that this operation would be worth it? And why did Orli choose her specifically for the operation? She had many other Mossad agents, more than trained and ready, even Adam Eschel, but she went to the trouble of finding her, after she had gone off the grid and declared her intent to forever leave the business. And the two of them weren't on the greatest of terms - she had purposely misled authorities into searching for Ilan Bodnar in Europe when he had never left the United States and earlier, she had an affair with her father and broke apart her family.

As she thought about everything she knew, she knew that she didn't know anything. That her entire life had changed, that nothing was like it had seemed. She truly had to start from the beginning, both in her physical state and in her mental one to see just what was true in her life, what her life truly was.

Rising from the ground, Ziva walked back up to the punching bag and began to punch it, trying to clear her mind of what she thought she knew and then begin filling it with what was real. It was time to reconstruct her life.

* * *

Meanwhile, returning to the Navy Yard, McGee was working on decrypting Commodore Harding's hard drive to see who she had been doing business with, and then who could have killed her. They were very fortunate that the killer had not found the hard drive and stolen it.

Working his computer magic, McGee was able to pull up the list of ledgers that Harding was working on. McGee said, "Okay, boss, I'm in her computer and am bringing up the contents of her hard drive now."

Pulling up the contents of the commodore's hard drive onto the plasma screen, McGee opened up the folder labeled _WORK_ and then accessed _LEDGERS_. Instantly, a list of businesses opened up, close to a dozen of them.

DiNozzo wondered, "Quite a few businesses. Looks like we'll have to check out all of them. Maybe she noticed an irregularity in one of them."

Bishop soon began compiling a list of employees from all the businesses. After a minute, she announced, "Okay, I have a list of all individuals employed at all of the businesses. All the businesses are small, with less than ten employees each. Several of them are only manned by one person."

McGee added, "Look for any knife throwers."

"None of the businesses are circuses or have anything to do with knives."

Tony pointed out, "Maybe our killer pulled an inverted Jimmy Stewart in _The Greatest Show on Earth_. A killer dressed as a clown in that film. Now, it's a clown who gave up the paint and then became a killer. Check their employment histories, Probie. Hopefully we'll get lucky."

Gibbs added, "We don't get lucky. We get our results. Anything, Bishop?"

After a minute, Bishop had her results. "Okay, of these fifty seven employees, eighteen were previously connected to knives in some way. Seven of them were knife salesmen, so we can filter them out, I think. Do we filter them out?"

"Unless they both sold knives and threw them."

"None of them do, so we'll filter them out. That leaves us eleven suspects. Four were knife manufacturers, leaving us with seven. Of those seven, we have two professional primitive weapons experts and one circus knife thrower."

"Who are they, Probie?" Bishop pulled the three people onto the plasma: Victor Valentin, a self-taught master at throwing axes and daggers, who worked for Cove Lights, a hydroelectricity company; Alec Mishin, a child of two circus gymnasts and a trained knife thrower, who worked for LockDown, a storage company; and Zack Rilper, a caveman re-enactor with knife training who was employed by Tuscan Baking, an Italian bakery.

"That leaves us three. McGee, audit the three businesses the suspects work for. Bishop, run alibis for the three suspects. Tony, look to see if any of the suspects have bought an Army K-Bar knife."

After nine minutes of working, Tony said, "Okay, of our three suspects, Valentin and Mishin both bought Army K-Bar knives. Rilper didn't buy one, nor did the owner of Tuscan Baking."

Bishop added, "Rilper didn't kill Harding. He was running a shift at Tuscan Baking at the time of Harding's murder. Nothing's available on Valentin and Mishin. Neither of them own their own car, they both use company cars."

Gibbs looked to McGee for who the killer was. McGee answered, "Tuscan Baking is clear. The other two businesses aren't so. Compared with all of the storages, LockDown is making much more money than the storages would be bringing in. They must be freelancing or getting payoffs from one of their customers. Cove Lights, on the other hand, bought equipment worth $58,000 but it is only reported that the equipment was bought for $23,900 and no other payments are due."

Gibbs analyzed, "We got two suspects. Tony, you and Bishop check out Cove Lights. McGee, we're looking at LockDown."

* * *

Over at LockDown, located a few miles west of Woodbridge, Virginia, Gibbs and McGee proceeded to look for the owner as well as Alec Mishin, their suspect. Upon seeing their car come up to the entrance, the owner greeted, "Hello, what can I do for you today?"

Gibbs and McGee flashed their badges to the owner as he said, "NCIS. Where is Alec Mishin?"

"What is this about?"

McGee answered, "Mishin is a suspect in the murder of Navy Commodore Jennifer Harding."

"Jennifer's dead? I just saw her two days ago."

"Was she doing your books?"

"Yeah."

"Well, she noticed some discrepancies in your numbers. You were pulling in much more money than you reasonably could. Would you care to explain? Who was paying more than they should?"

The owner stuttered briefly, unable to come up with a response. Gibbs nodded to McGee and he pulled out a pair of handcuffs, preparing to arrest the owner before he shouted, "Okay! A man came to me a few weeks ago and bought a storage container. A few hours afterwards, I ended up stumbling in on him and discovered he was using it to store opium. He offered me triple the rate to keep quiet."

Gibbs asked, "Who?"

"A man named Karim Lefsay. Mid-thirties, black hair, tanned skin. Haven't seen him since that day."

"One more thing. Commodore Harding called you twice in the day before she died. Do you know why?"

"She called me? I checked my voicemail a few hours before I left for home. I left my cell phone in my office, where I wasn't for most of the day. Honestly, I didn't know. I swear."

"Did Alec Mishin have access to your office?"

"Yes."

"Where is he?"

"He's currently dusting some of the empty containers. Section B."

* * *

Within an hour, Gibbs had Alec Mishin sitting in the interrogation room, handcuffed, and now he was ready to get a confession out of him.

Gibbs walked into the interrogation room and took his seat, revealing a folder with Commodore Harding's corpse, the ledger for LockDown, and a picture of a knife. Gibbs explained, "Got a warrant for your apartment. Found an Army K-Bar knife with your prints all over it."

Mishin asked, "So?"

"We also found Harding's blood on it. You should have used bleach. How much did your boss pay you to keep quiet about Lefsay's opium?"

"Twenty thousand. A month. Commodore Harding was getting suspicious about the extra income. I wouldn't let that happen. If she figured it out, I'd lose over two hundred thousand dollars a year in potential income."

"Yeah, I can see why. You've got eight hundred in the bank, would be down to fifty in a month. You were desperate, so you chose to murder Harding. Those knife-throwing skills weren't as useful as you thought. Threw the K-Bar, only lodged itself in her abdomen, forcing you to finish her by stabbing. You tried to frame her husband, Captain Harding, but you didn't know he could not possibly have committed the murder - he was in Africa."

"I should have just knifed her in the back. Navy bitch cost me my life." After that comment, Gibbs stared at Mishin with pure scorn.

* * *

It had been about two and a half weeks since Ziva had been recruited back into Mossad for the high-stakes undercover mission. Despite a terrible start, Ziva has slowly been rebuilding her strength and skill.

Now, she could better shoot, both with utmost precision and speed, much like she had been able to do back at NCIS and Mossad. She also had regained her hand-to-hand combat, being able to take down even heavy adversaries with little difficulty. At this moment, she was almost the weapon Gibbs had once described her to be.

It was very extraordinary how fast Ziva was recovering from her previous drunken state. While she had overcome that aspect, she still had yet to overcome the disgrace she had put on herself for departing NCIS, not to mention the severe depression that she still faced. Her entire life had reshaken by her recent experiences and she already knew she was not the same cold-blooded killer she had been in Mossad, nor was she the investigator she once was while in NCIS. She was neither of them, but right now, she was unsure if she could be either of them. She basically now had to remove everything she was and become a mask, a cover for her undercover work. She had to be nothing like the person she once was.

She had to succeed at this mission, it was both her redemption and her salvation, and perhaps her reunification with the man she had lost to her own inability to come to terms with her feelings. It did not matter what it cost her, she did not care about what part of her would disappear because of the mission, the person she would have to transform herself into.

Now, there was no more time to lament over everything. She had to start her operation. First, she had to change her appearance as they knew what Ziva David looked like. She first applied a black hair dye to her brown hair. While that change wasn't enough to conceal her identity, she then proceeded to cut her hair from its place just above her elbows all the way to her ears. It didn't look very womanlike, but it at least was much less to handle. With her hair looking nothing like it was, Ziva then finished her disguise with two contact lenses that made her eyes green.

Now, the organization could not tell that Ziva was Ziva. Now, her identity was Netali Jarrah, a former Israeli sniper and an expert bombmaker. Somebody that the organization was looking for.

She was already on a flight from Israel to Pakistan, where she would be met by somebody who was part of the organization and once she passed the test, would be brought into the organization, so she could begin spying on them.

There was no turning back now. It was all or nothing, either she succeeded or she died trying.

Once she arrived in Pakistan, Ziva exited her airplane, carrying nothing but the clothes off her back and a hidden communication device that enabled her to keep in contact with Orli.

As she walked towards the exit of the airport, Ziva was met by the man who would initiate her into the organization. He asked, "Are you Netali Jarrah?"

Ziva answered, "I am. And you are?" She looked at the man without emotion, waiting to see how he reacts. She had to maintain an emotionless facade in order to convince him that she was the real deal.

The man replied, "My name is Karim Lefsay and once we get to base, we will see if you truly are who you say you are."

Ziva continued to stare emotionlessly at Lefsay, who was testing her to see if she would react.

**Foof.**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, some of you may think that the final plot twist was just plain over-the-top, but like I said earlier, Ziva's story will cross over with that of NCIS. And as we continue, we'll see more NCIS characters, such as Fornell, Borin, and a few major surprises.


	3. Took a Kite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Karim begins to test Ziva's loyalty, the NCIS team investigates a drive-by shooting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And for a note of reference, when Ziva is in the midst of her undercover op, the name Netali will be used to differentiate Ziva from her alias. Of course, Ziva will be used when communicating with her allies. I will alternate usage of the two identities so you can tell when to think of Ziva as which one of the two identities, and also serves to help you help her remember her own identity.

**Foof. "Netali" looks at Karim Lefsay as he holds an automatic weapon in his hands.**

Still at the airport, Ziva looked at Karim as he prepared to take her off to the base, where she would begin her true undercover mission as Netali.

Karim still stared at her, trying to see how she would react, finding no emotion to be present in her eyes. He commented, "So, Netali, do you value your life?"

She replied, "I have nothing left. No country, no family, no love. If you want to kill me right now, then do so."

Impressed by the response he got, Karim noted, "No connections, no passions, no weaknesses, no emotion. Come, my boss would like to meet with you."

Karim proceeded to walk towards his car and Ziva followed, making sure she didn't do anything that would break her cover.

Karim entered his car, a rental, and pulled something out of the glove compartment. Walking behind "Netali", Karim proceeded to tie the blindfold around her eyes, making it impossible for her to know just where they were heading. Only when she had proven her loyalty enough to leave for operations could she be shown the location of the base.

Netali was escorted into the passenger's seat of the car, before she buckled herself in. Just because she was blind, did not mean she was incompetent as she found the strap and set it in the buckle. Once she had done that, Karim hopped into the driver's seat and turned on the ignition, backing out of the airport and then heading out towards the base, a very long drive. It would very well be a while before they arrived.

And as she could only feel the movements in the road, Ziva would have to rely solely on her other senses to determine just where in the world she was.

Swerves went all over the place, with Ziva trying to pinpoint her exact intended destination. One of her ops had brought her to Pakistan before, especially the airport she just arrived in, but she hadn't been _everywhere_ in Pakistan, so the range of potential locations was significant.

If she thought she could use the communication device to pinpoint her location, the device lacked a GPS or tracker, so she could not locate herself - just a huge design flaw on part of the makers at Mossad. Then again, if they included one, it would become too big and thus easily noticeable by the people she was trying to infiltrate. Ziva was simply grateful she had a way to communicate with the outside world.

In the car, Ziva asked, "So, Karim, how long until we get there?"

Karim responded, "It will be a while. And do not talk in the car."

* * *

Meanwhile, it was another day of business at the Navy Yard, the headquarters of NCIS, with DiNozzo and McGee currently at their desks, with Bishop and Gibbs's whereabouts currently unknown.

DiNozzo turned to face McGee and asked, "So, Tim, how's Delilah doing?"

McGee replied, "She's still getting used to the wheelchair, the shrapnel's too close to remove, so she'll remain paraplegic for the rest of her life. Right now, she's dealing with medical leave from the DOD and is pretty much staying in an apartment with elevator access, so she can leave the place."

"You think she'll end up like Tom Cruise's character in _Born on the Fourth of July_?"

"She definitely has difficulty going to the bathroom and based on what I heard, it may prove difficult for her to conceive a child. So yes, Tony. She'll end up like Tom Cruise in _Born on the Fourth of July_."

"Oof. That has to hurt."

Bishop then emerged from the elevator and headed over to her desk. McGee asked, "Bishop, you're late."

The newbie agent responded, "No, I'm not. I was down in evidence making sure my signature was valid. I got here half an hour earlier before the office opened to do so, and it took me a while."

Suddenly, came the voice of the fourth member of the MCRT. "Yeah, well you're gonna need it. Grab your gear, we got a dead Marine in Liberty Heights."

* * *

Arriving at Liberty Heights, a crime-ridden neighborhood near Washington DC, where the team had previously investigated the murder of Emilio Salazar, a Private, who the team discovered had been killed to force his friend to smuggle assault rifles off of the Marine base, the team quickly found the body, a man laying down in an alley.

Checking the victim's identification, McGee said, "According to his ID, he is Marine Lance Corporal John Prink, age 22, stationed at Camp Pendleton. He has a mother and father currently living at Baker Retirement Home in Augusta, Georgia. Base records say he was on his way to visit them."

Ducky and Palmer walked up to the body and began analyzing the corpse of Lance Corporal Prink. Palmer noted, "From what it looks like, he was shot multiple times in the chest. Though we'll likely know more once we perform the autopsy."

Ducky then added, "You're right, Mr. Palmer. It looks as if Mr. Prink was killed in a drive-by shooting. Time of death, just under two hours ago."

DiNozzo remarked, "Very fast response time for the body to be found."

Gibbs snarked, "Yeah, likely too fast. Get him back to the Navy Yard."

* * *

Meanwhile, back in Pakistan, it had been close to four hours since Ziva had gotten into the car with Karim, still en route to meet Karim's boss. Based on their estimated speed, Ziva felt that they were going close to seventy-five kilometers/hour and the range of the car was about four hundred eighty kilometers on a full tank, so she could have up to three more hours of driving to face with, blinded by the blindfold, before she got to her destination.

Then, she would have to keep up her facade as Netali. It would be her legend, her undercover identity, for as long as it took - weeks, months, even years. She already had been captured once, she refused to be captured again. And she refused to be killed - she still had her own unresolved demons to deal with.

Especially those surrounding her occupation - when Ziva stayed behind in Israel when Tony tried to bring her back to DC, she said she wanted to get out, give up the badge, and start a new life. Now, it seemed like no matter where she went, she could not escape her past as daddy's little spy.

After she took her position as Mossad liasion officer with NCIS, she had to deal with the clash between her former job of killing and torturing terrorists and now apprehending and questioning criminals. That was something which took her a while to fully get used to - Gibbs had to keep her benched several times when going after suspects, out of fear Ziva would kill them - and indeed, Ziva was at least accidentally responsible for the deaths of several suspects.

Then, even after Ziva had left Mossad for NCIS, she still had to deal with her father and his less-than-scrupulous actions (sending Officer Ben-Gidon to set her up as the killer of a Marine to bring her back to Kidon). And that was not the last she had to deal with him - especially when he came to DC per request of Director Vance for a conference regarding many older NCIS/NIS ops (including Trident, the one responsible for Vance and Eli's first meeting and subsequent friendship). However, when Eli was nearly killed by a bomb meant for Vance, it resulted in a very tense interrogation of the Mossad director by Gibbs.

The end result of that was the Davids ending up making at least mild reconciliations, with Eli leaving Ziva with an Israeli flag. Their next meeting was two years later, the one that saw Eli's life end courtesy of an assassin at Shabbat dinner.

What that event spiraled into was Ziva being thrust back into her old roots as the Mossad Kidon officer rather than her new life as an American NCIS agent. And that was the deciding factor that made Ziva desire to leave her old life behind. Unfortunately, it was because of her shaping early in life that she can never fully put that life behind her, no matter how much she tried.

She was raised from the cradle to be Mossad, explaining how she advanced so quickly at such a young age (especially with her father being a high-ranking Mossad officer). And it also explained why she was never going to be able to get away from her days in Mossad.

As she continued to lament her current situation, she did not notice the car coming to a stop. Once she felt it, though, she heard a door open and Karim saying, "Stay there. We will get you in a moment. And don't remove your blindfold. We'll know if you do." Ziva heard a grunt that did not sound like Karim, which was indicative of there being someone else. Hearing the door close and Karim's footsteps gradually becoming quieter, Ziva knew she was alone there, except for the guard keeping watch over her.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in Washington DC, the team was discussing what they knew about their latest victim.

Bishop began, pulling up the relevant information on the monitor, "Lance Corporal John Prink, born in Bismark, North Dakota, was assigned to Camp Pendleton a year after getting out of basic training. He was responsible for security for the base's office supplies. His parents, Gordon and Helen Prink, are retired, age sixty-nine and sixty, respectively, living at Baker Retirement Home in Augusta. They moved there shortly after Prink went to boot camp."

Tony then explained, "Prink's supervisor said that he was hard-working though he had trouble getting along with some of his colleagues. He believed it to be some sort of social disorder, but there is none on his medical record."

McGee then added, "I checked with Prink's parents. They were expecting him to come down there tomorrow. He flew in from Pendleton to Washington and was then scheduled to fly out to Augusta early tomorrow morning."

Gibbs asked, "So why was Prink in Liberty Heights?"

McGee answered, "Airport security footage reports Prink left the airport two hours after arriving in a rental car. I got the car on traffic, it parked about ten blocks away from where we found the body. Metro's towing it here so we could check it out."

As the team discussed Prink, Gibbs got a call on his phone and answered, "Yeah, Gibbs."

On the other end came, _"Gibbs, Prink's supervisor is coming on in MTAC in two minutes."_

Gibbs commented, "I'll be there, Leon" before hanging up the phone. "Prink's supervisor is up in MTAC. McGee, Prink's financials and phone records. Bishop, DiNozzo, track Prink's movements from the airport."

Walking up to MTAC (and putting his eye in the retinal scanner), Gibbs entered the room where he was about to speak with the victim's commanding officer.

Once the screen came online, the man on the other side began, _"Major Ellis Denton. Greetings, Agent Gibbs."_

"Greetings Major Denton. What do you know about Lance Corporal John Prink?"

_"He was off to see his parents in Augusta. But he got killed in DC. Any answers?"_

"That's where you would come in. He left the airport and went to Liberty Heights. What would he find in there?"

 _"Scuttlebutt around the office is that Prink was going to meet an old_ 'friend' _of his. Marine Private First Class Carey Wilkes. The two had a bit of a tussle in boot camp and haven't seen each other since. From what I heard, Prink just found out where Wilkes was, especially since he just got back from a deployment in Syria."_

"Thanks, Major."

Signing off of MTAC, Gibbs headed out and called DiNozzo on his cell phone.

The senior field agent answered, _"Yeah, boss?"_

"Private First Class Carey Wilkes. Bring him in for interrogation."

_"On it."_

* * *

Looking up the information for Private First Class Wilkes, DiNozzo and Bishop headed towards his apartment back in Liberty Heights. Upon arriving at the complex, they got out of their car, with DiNozzo and Bishop both pulling out their sidearms as they went after Wilkes.

As they moved, they noticed Wilkes walking towards the door to his building, DiNozzo shouted, "Private Wilkes! NCIS!"

Suddenly, Wilkes began to run away from the two agents. As a result, the chase was on. DiNozzo ordered, "I'll cut him off!"

Bishop asked, "Why you?"

"I'm the phys ed major!"

"Good point. Wilkes was towards the bottom of his class in foot speed."

Bishop immediately began following Wilkes as he ran away, trying to elude the two federal agents. Running into an alley, Wilkes did what he could to throw off Bishop - namely, tipping over garbage cans.

That didn't phase Bishop one bit as she kept up the pace. Before she could catch up to him, though, DiNozzo caught up to him and pointed his SIG at Wilkes's head.

"No more running, Wilkes."

* * *

With Wilkes now in their custody, Bishop and DiNozzo brought him back to NCIS for interrogation, sitting him down in the room before heading to observation, waiting for Gibbs to come and do his thing.

At last Gibbs came in and started, "Private First Class Carey Wilkes. Born in Santa Monica, California before being raised in Sacramento."

Wilkes replied, "Yeah, so?"

"When you turned eighteen you joined the Corps, where you met this man." Gibbs pulled out a picture of Lance Corporal Prink.

"Oh, Johnny boy. Bastard didn't know when to keep his nose out of other people's business."

"Well, he's dead. Came to DC today and got murdered."

"What makes you think I did him in?"

"He found out where you were and was coming to see you before heading to his parents. What happened back in boot camp, Carey?"

"Prink saw that I was violating curfew, going out and about the town. He confronted me about it, tried to threaten me with it."

"How?"

"I was at a local casino, won ninety grand one night and was gonna use it as an early retirement. Prink threatened to tell my superiors unless I gave him half the dough."

"So you and him fought."

"I refused, he put his hand on my shoulder, and fists away. We both got written up for the fight and Prink said he'd be back to collect his money. I deployed two days later and never saw him since."

"He came here for forty-five thousand dollars? You killed him over forty-five thousand?"

"No. I spent the past four days down in Richmond looking for a house. Didn't get back until a few hours ago, when your agents went after me. Talk to Blossoming Housing, they were with me the whole damn time."

* * *

Back in Pakistan, Ziva, or rather "Netali" was still waiting in the car for Karim to summon her in to meet with the leader of the cell she was trying to infiltrate. Her blindfold remained over her eyes as a guard kept watch over her, training some sort of automatic weapon at her in case she tries something, say remove her blindfold, get out of the car, and run away.

It's already been several hours stuck in the car and she could feel the heat pounding in. She was starting to fear she would die of heatstroke before she even managed to get inside of the organization. All that effort...for nothing.

Just as she began to fear Karim would not come back, she heard the left side door open and she was grabbed from her seat. Karim uttered in her ear, "Sorry it took so long." Ziva could feel that Karim was partially truthful with his apology but another part of him truly enjoyed having her wait in that car for so long.

Escorted out of the vehicle, Ziva heard the guard's footsteps as he got behind her and then Karim began walking forward. Ziva followed, trying to figure out which direction he was heading, but the blindfold was complicating matters. She'd have to rely on her hearing, but if there were so many others present, Karim's footsteps would get lost in the drift. That could not happen if Ziva was hoping to get inside the cell.

Fortunately, with the guard behind her, Ziva wouldn't drift too far off the path. As she followed Karim, she tried to keep track of the steps she took in an attempt to get a feel for the place - it would prove very handy if she had to escape, but the blindfold was making it difficult to know if there were any doors she would have to get through. That would complicate matters.

But for now, she just had to make sure her identity hadn't been compromised.

Finally, Karim stopped moving, so Ziva also stopped moving. Karim proceeded to walk away from Ziva as the guard removed her blindfold before pushing his weapon into her back, insisting, "Don't move."

Ziva nodded in compliance, not being able to look at the guard, so she turned her attention to Karim and the cell leader. He appeared to be an older man, close to his seventies, with no hair on his scalp but a bushy beard covering his chin and a mustache over his upper lip. And based on the accent he was speaking with, Ziva could swear he was of French origin.

The elder berated Karim, "أيها الوغد! تم ضبط المخدرات الخاصة بك."

Karim countered, "ماذا يعني استولى؟ دفعت تخزين صاحب المنشأة للحفاظ على اغلاق له الفم والعقاقير لدينا آمنة."

"على ما يبدو، حصل المحققون البحرية إلى صاحب المستودع. قتل أحد موظفيه محاسب الذي حصل مشبوهة من بعض "الإيرادات غير متناسقة" - أموال الرشوة الخاص بك. تم ضبط جميع الأدوية. هل تعرف كم من المال خسرنا للتو؟."

As they talked, Ziva pretended not to know what they were saying. However, Ziva spoke Arabic too, and was using a trait used many times by Tony to get a confession - obfuscating stupidity. From what she heard, the elder was berating Karim for having his drug stash seized by Navy investigators.

The elder continued, "ثلاثين مليون دولار. كنت يكلفنا ثلاثين مليونا! التي ليس من السهل استعادة!" Thirty million dollars seized by NCIS.

Karim answered, "والمواد الأفيونية هي مصدر قلق قليلا. ما هو مصدر القلق هو الثقة ولكي أكون صريحا، لا يمكننا أن نثق أي شخص من خارج المؤسسة الخاصة بنا." Apparently, their concerns were not about the opium that was seized, but rather about the matter of who they could trust.

"ثم كيف يمكنك أن تعرف أننا يمكن أن أثق بها؟" Now, the elder was inquiring about whether or not she could be trusted. That would make the op much harder if he believed she was an undercover operative.

"ليس لديها عاطفة اليسار في بلدها، وقالت انها تؤذي بقدر ما نحن عليه. لديها قلب الذي ننشده." Karim was defending her, saying she lacked emotion in her eyes, that her heart fit that of themselves.

"وكما لهذا ... وكيل جيبس؟" Ziva gave an unnoticed smirk when she heard Gibbs - he was still pissing them off, which was a sign he was alive.

"في الوقت المناسب، سوف يأتي الانتقام، وأليس كذلك؟" Now, Ziva was a little worried. It was just like Orli said - the cell was going after NCIS.

"وسوف، وبمجرد أن أوامر السيطرة عليه." So, the elder was not the head of the organization - there was someone else in charge. Whoever The Master was, it would take some time before she would find out his identity.

"جيدة. يجب أن يكون لها القادمة؟" Now Karim asked if he should have "Netali" come over to speak with him.

The elder answered, "نعم. جلب لها بالنسبة لي. الوقت لتلبية ملكة جمال الجراح." Now, it was time to meet the man.

The guard proceeded to walk Ziva over to the elder, who asked her, now in French, "Ainsi, Mlle Jarrah, quelle langue voulez-vous parler? Français? L'hébreu? Suédois? Anglais?"

Ziva answered, "English."

The elder replied, "Okay then, Rav samal Jarrah. I have acquired a copy of your file from the Israel Defense Forces. Two years of service as a marksman. Service in Lebanon. Sixteen confirmed kills. After your honorable discharge in 2001 as a platoon sergeant, you went free-lancing your services. Mozambique, Guyana, Turkmenistan. You also expanded your skills from just the sniper rifle to bomb-making. From what I hear, you can create a homemade Claymore mine."

Ziva was amazed just how thorough the elder had gone in checking out her cover identity, and just how deep Mossad made her cover identity. Then again, part of that was true. She had served in Lebanon for the duration of her time as IDF, which was further part of her own Mossad training, which helped her quickly advance to control officer and Kidon assassin by the age of twenty.

"Yes, that is correct. A trick my father once used. It killed three assassins sent his way." Ziva covertly referred to when Eli and Vance had killed a hit squad sent by Anatoly Zhukov back in 1991 - using an IED.

"Your father must be a very talented man."

"He was, until his murder over a year ago." Ziva was telling the truth on that one, as after all, the best lies have some sense of truth in them.

"He raised a talented daughter. Now, as for your business here. I had sent a message out on Chauvenet for a bomb maker and you just so happened to answer the message. You declined to discuss payment until you got here. Please, tell me."

"I only charge based on what you want me to do. Every bomb is different. Some go boom, some go bang. Some use explosives, others use chemicals. What type of explosives do you want me to do?"

"You'll find out soon enough. I don't give away the key details of our workings to strangers. You have to prove your loyalty first."

"Then why put out the advertisement with the intention of not telling the bomb maker what you want them to do?"

"Netali, perhaps you don't understand us. We aren't in this for the short run, not for just a couple of days and make a few dollars. No, this is long term. We wanted someone who would be willing to wait long enough that they would prove their own loyalty. Only the truly devoted would follow to that. Do you have any idea how many individuals try to audition for roles in our organization?"

"How many?"

"Millions. And most of them fail the audition, why? Because they lack the commitment, the willingness to endure, to fight a war of attrition. Victory is not achieved by killing the enemy. It is achieved by breaking them, making it impossible for them to want to continue the war, make the price of victory so high that they would rather settle for defeat."

"But wouldn't such deterrent tactics serve to be counterproductive? Wouldn't they just get a stronger resolve?"

The elder laughed before continuing, "You make a good point, Rav samal. They become committed to fighting us, but much like here, only the strongest souls are willing to continue the fight. If you lack conviction, you lack the ability to win, the desire to see this to the end. We don't want people without conviction. Either you have it or you don't. Once the opposition has whittled down to only the strongest, then we break whatever force is driving them here. Threaten worse attacks than already done, prove a point to them, and force them to withdraw. Only the strong survive and thrive. And that is why it takes time before you can get the full details of the job I offered. Understood?"

"I understand, Mister..."

"Call me The Vizier." A high-ranking minister or advisor. Add in the fact that Ziva overheard him mention someone called The Master, and Ziva knew that this elder was a high-ranking member of the cell, but not the leader. The new question on her mind was: who was the leader of the cell? The Master?

"Alright then, Vizier. Now what?"

"Time to test your loyalty, Rav samal. Karim, show Miss Jarrah to the storage bunker."

"نعم، الوزير." Karim acknowledged the Vizier's request and took "Netali" towards the storage bunker, intending to show her her first task.

* * *

Over back at NCIS, Gibbs was heading down to autopsy, where he hoped that Ducky and Palmer had new information on Lance Corporal Prink, and possibly, his killer.

McGee had verified Private Wilkes's alibi at Blossoming Housing for the past several days, so he couldn't have killed Prink.

Arriving down at the morgue, Gibbs saw Ducky and Palmer working on the body. Ducky was going on, "...La Madrina utilized drive-by shootings as a method of killing her opposition. She had more than enough people killed so her rivals made attempts on her life, and failed."

Palmer asked, "Did Blanco ever truly pay for her crimes? I mean, I know she went to prison for drugs but she got off scot-free for murder."

Gibbs added, "Griselda Blanco was gunned down in September 2012 in a drive-by shooting in Colombia."

Ducky commented, "Hoist by her own petard indeed."

Gibbs inquired, "So why'd you call me down here Duck?"

"Well, I can say for certain that Mister Prink was killed in the drive-by shooting. And judging by the degree of damage from the bullets, I'd say the shooter was very close to him. In drive-by shootings, the shooter has the issue of both moving the vehicle and opening fire, so unless they stop the vehicle, their accuracy is going to suffer. And this was true for Prink's killer. The rounds went all over his body."

Palmer threw in, "We gathered a dozen bullets from Prink's body. The fatal round went into his inferior vena cava, which cause massive bleeding. He was dead in seconds."

"Mr. Palmer is correct. Of those twelve rounds, three were fired post-mortem into the body. I'd say that your killer used an automatic weapon as it would have a high enough fire rate to hit Prink twelve times in that amount of time and to not stop shooting even when Prink died."

"Anything else?"

"Ah, yes, Jethro." Pointing to Prink's feet, Ducky explained, "Based on the calluses on his feet, Lance Corporal Prink was walking when he was killed. He was ambushed from behind and by the time he turned around, the killer had started firing."

"You think he was targeted?"

"I think he was a victim of opportunity, a random drive-by shooting."

Suddenly, Ducky's intercom with Abby turned on, as the Goth forensics specialist appeared on screen. _"Gibbs, I have something. Come down to the lab."_

Walking over to the monitor, Gibbs replied, "I'll be right there." Then, Gibbs went to the elevator and first made sure to go to the vending machine and get Abby a Caf-Pow, which Abby practically mainlined with several of them downed a day.

With the drink in hand, Gibbs proceeded to head towards Abby's lab, where she was currently working on the evidence from Prink's crime scene.

Gibbs inquired, "What do you got, Abs?"

Abby turned around to see Gibbs and began to explain, "Okay, so I've been running the tire tracks, which judging by the single tread pattern, had to be a motorcycle of some kind. From what I can tell you, the bike was manufactured in the past year or so."

"Anything else?"

"Yes." Gibbs walked over to Abby, who began to explain, "I processed the bullets you found at the scene. The shooter fired off thirty bullets, which would be an entire clip for most weapons."

"Palmer counted twelve in Prink's body."

"That means eighteen bullets missed and impacted the alley wall. Ducky was right about it being an automatic."

"So, you determine the SMG yet?"

"Actually, this wasn't fired from a submachine gun. They tend to fire pistol-caliber rounds like the nine millimeter or the forty-five. The bullets I found were NATO five point five six bullets."

"And what about the shell casings?"

"Shooter policed his brass, likely with a brass catcher. Leave as little evidence behind as possible. I got no prints on the bullets either."

"So, you don't know what gun they used?"

"I do, actually." Pulling up an image of the weapon on screen, Abby mock introduced, "Say hello to the Olympic Arms OA-93. Subject to severe restrictions as it could be considered an assault weapon. Normally produced with just the safe and semi-automatic fire modes, this model must have been converted to fully-automatic."

"Perfect for a drive-by shooter."

"Just to own one of these, you'd need to complete a lot of freaking paperwork, and so beg the question who the hell has one of these things?"

* * *

Returning to the cell's base in Pakistan, Karim was escorting Ziva, or rather "Netali" to the storage bunker for her first assignment. Ziva was rather annoyed that she was not told immediately what she was hired for, and was likely being sent to do menial labor.

Based on what the Vizier said, it would be a very long time before she finally found out what she was hired for. Before she finally managed to get inside of the cell. And that was trouble since the longer she stayed undercover as "Netali", the greater the chance she'll be compromised.

Time was of the essence, so she had to make sure she knew her cover better than anyone. Any discrepancies and everything would be thrown out the window.

Finally, after climbing down several flights of stairs and going through a long maze of tunnels, Karim and Ziva arrived at the storage bunker. She asked, "Was all this really necessary?"

Karim remarked, "You can never be too prepared. To lessen the impact of bombings, much of this base is underground, roughly twelve stories on average." Opening the storage bunker, Ziva saw tons of crates, but had no idea what was in them.

The two walked in, with Ziva uncertain of just what she was going to do. Taking several steps in, Karim grabbed one of the crates and brought it over to Ziva.

Karim began to explain, "In the crates marked with a red dot are a series of weapons. The crates marked with a blue dot all contain various pieces you will need."

Ziva asked, "What am I doing?"

"You are to convert all the weapons in the crates with a red dot to fully-automatic fire. Once each weapon is finished, place it in one of the empty unmarked crates. Do you understand?"

Ziva nodded yes, and Karim opened the crate and pulled out a gun.

More specifically, an Olympic Arms OA-93 Pistol.

As Karim held the weapon in his hands, all "Netali" could do was look at him.

**Foof.**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, just to let you know, just because this story is in English, doesn't mean all the dialogue will be - look at the first speech between Karim and the Vizier. I will provide a translated equivalent of what they are saying, so you have basic subtitles. Let's just hope that the Arabic text I put in stays in the chapter.
> 
> As for "Rav samal", it's a rank in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), roughly the equivalent of a platoon sergeant. And for Chauvenet, it's from the NCIS spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles, specifically Inelegant Heart (Season 6, Episode 2) - roughly the equivalent of Phoenecian Exchange from NCIS , specifically Page Not Found (Season 11, Episode 20), or the real-life Silk Road website.
> 
> And if you didn't know who Griselda Blanco is, she was a Medellin cartel kingpin who later betrayed the cartel and started her own organization. She did die in a drive-by shooting.
> 
> More is to come, and please review.


	4. The Pot Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team's continuing investigation into a Marine's death by drive-by leads them to some surprising discoveries; as Ziva works on her first task for the organization, she and Karim begin to clash over ideals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know some of you aren't exactly fans of Bishop, but that's what the show gave me to use and I am adhering to canon for as long as I can, meaning that Bishop isn't going to be leaving anytime soon. And unlike the series where various characters may not appear in certain episodes, I will try to make sure every character appears in each episode, though there probably will be several chapters where not every character is seen.
> 
> In addition, I make sure to do research regarding everything I put into the story - weapons, locations, historical events (many of which Ducky uses as stories for his speeches to the dead). I strive for accuracy, and for this story, I refuse to resort to technical inaccuracies, though for the nitty-gritty stuff (as you'll see this chapter), I won't go too in-depth for two reasons: I can't find much information and I don't want people to read this story and learn how to create dangerous weapons (or think of ways to commit crimes). Based on what I've found so far, though, I've got more than a few creative ideas - you'll see them in the next few chapters of the story. Just don't try any of them in real life!
> 
> Now, let's continue the story.

**Foof. Gibbs stares at the dead body.**

Back in Washington DC, the MCRT is continuing their search for the man responsible for the drive-by killing of Lance Corporal John Prink.

Walking into the squad room, Gibbs asked, "Any hits on an OA-93?"

McGee answered, "None in the immediate DC area. That kind of weapon isn't one a regular civilian would own."

Bishop added, "No unsolved cases involving an OA-93 in the past year over at Metro."

DiNozzo then put in, "I've been running known gun dealers. There's only one within fifty miles of DC that may carry assault weapons. Vincent Fitzhugh."

McGee typed in Fitzhugh's name to pull up information about their newest suspect. McGee explained, "Vincent Fitzhugh, age forty-nine, sells firearms as the legitimate co-owner of Marshall Home Defense, a small store that sells guns and personal defense weapons such as pepper spray, brass knuckles, and tasers. However, ATF suspects that Fitzhugh has been selling assault weapons on the black market."

Bishop then began, "Fitzhugh also owns a motorcycle, a very new one."

Gibbs then remarked, "DiNozzo, with me. Let's check out Mr. Fitzhugh."

"On it boss." With that, Tony grabbed his gear and ran towards Gibbs as the two of them began to head towards the elevator, on the way to interrogate their new prime suspect. Even if he didn't kill Prink, Fitzhugh could give them an idea of who he sold the weapon to.

* * *

Arriving at Marshall Home Defense out in Painter, Virginia, a very small town with an estimated population under 300 people, Gibbs and DiNozzo got out of the car and headed into the store to see if they could find Vincent Fitzhugh.

Entering the store, the two saw a massive collection of weapons. Lining the back walls was a massive assortment of rifles, ranging from low-caliber .22 LR semi-automatics to .308 Winchester bolt-action rifles, all the way to single-shot big game rifles as well as assorted shotguns (pump-action, semi-automatic, over/under, and double barreled). Meanwhile, the shelves on the floor were lined with boxes of ammunition, from the standard 9x19 Parabellum to the uncommon .41 Magnum, plus locked glass containers with sample tasers and pepper spray.

Walking up to the counter, Gibbs and DiNozzo noticed a huge array of handguns, big and small, from the old-school Single Action Army and M1911 to the modern Steyr M9A1 and FN Forty-Nine, plus varying from the lowly Glock 17 up to...

DiNozzo was practically drooling when he saw that particular weapon, "Oh boy, Dirty Harry's gun itself, the good old .44 Magnum."

While his senior field agent was distracted by the hand-cannon, Gibbs delivered a head slap to DiNozzo's head, snapping him out of his trance. The response he got was, "Sorry, boss."

Soon after, the two NCIS agents were met by a middle aged man with blond hair that went down to his ears, a mustache, green eyes, and a suit, asking, "Eric Marshall, owner of the store. How may I help you?"

Gibbs replied, "NCIS. Where is Vincent Fitzhugh?"

"What is this about?"

Tony answered, "We believe Mr. Fitzhugh may have sold an automatic weapon responsible for a Marine's death in a drive-by shooting this morning."

"We don't sell automatic weapons."

Gibbs snarked, "Not in store, at least."

"You believe that my co-owner is selling weapons on the black market. I've already gotten visits from the ATF and FBI regarding Vincent."

"So what have you told them?"

"If I knew something, I'd tell them, but I know nothing about any black market trading, especially coming out of my store."

"Do you know where we can find Vincent Fitzhugh?"

"He's attending a convention over in Yorktown. All about recent gun control laws and how to handle these new regulations. Been there for the past week."

Tony turned to Gibbs. "You think Fitzhugh killed Prink, boss?"

"No, but I think Fitzhugh may know who did. Find the convention."

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Pakistan, Ziva is working on the task assigned to her by Karim through the Vizier - to convert a significant number of OA-93 semi-automatic pistols to full-auto fire, which will then be distributed across the globe to members of the cell.

The room she was presently in was locked and guarded by three armed guards as well as Karim, her "handler" for the cell. And even if she decided to attempt a breakout raid, the weapons she was working on were unloaded with no bullets present anywhere in her reach.

Basically, this was a test of loyalty, one Ziva knew would test her resolve and whether or not she would attack the members of the cell. If she tried to attack them, they would realize she was not one for the cause and would be rejected and almost certainly killed.

Looking at one of the OA-93 pistols in front of her, Ziva began to think about how she was going to have to attack innocents, attack citizens of both her home nation Israel and her adopted nation, the United States.

Especially since she was hired to build a bomb, and she still had no idea what she'd be making and for what purpose. This was going to be a _very_ long mission indeed, which meant she had to be just like Tony when he went undercover as "Tony DiNardo", maintain the illusion until the target was down. Unlike Tony's undercover op, though, Ziva didn't have a second life to balance, so she would have to remain as Netali Jarrah for the duration of this mission.

She had to follow Karim's orders (which came from The Vizier and some man known as The Master) down to the letter if she wanted to succeed. And that meant converting the OA-93 rifles in front of her to fully-automatic.

No matter how many of them were there.

She basically had to exchange the lower receiver, which kept the guns in semi-automatic mode, with that of a military-grade M16, which was full-auto. Just like how Hollywood was able to turn the semi-automatic pistol carbine into a submachine gun.

Though, the process wasn't as simple as it sounded as she had to make sure none of the parts fell out of either part of the weapon, which meant she would have to reassemble it, and she didn't know all of the nitty-gritty that went into each gun, especially assault rifles. She really did not want to assemble the weapons from the smallest piece. What would they think if she couldn't keep a gun together? She'd never be able to fix them a bomb.

This was more than just a test of character, this was a test of competency. And odds are, there were going to be so many more like it.

Now, it was time to focus on the job at hand. Ziva removed the lower receiver from another OA-93 so she could then switch it out with the fully-automatic receiver. Then, she fitted the magazine from the lower receiver she had removed into the newly-modified weapon and checked the fire modes - safe and semi-auto. Customs will assume the weapons are semi-auto only, but the recepients will know that the weapons are full-auto only. Just squeeze down the trigger and open fire at the target.

One more weapon was down. A lot more OA-93's to go. Picking up another OA-93 and M16 lower receiver, "Netali" began to do the next weapon, following Karim's instructions. It would take a while to finish this job, a while before she could get out of the vault.

She repeated the process for another OA-93, switching the semi-automatic lower receiver for the fully automatic lower receiver. Now, she assumed that the weapons would fire, but they would be ultimately tested by the terrorist organizations Karim and the Vizier had distributed the weapons.

As she continued to work, she soon noticed Karim coming into the vault to check up on her. Karim asked, "So, Netali, how are the weapons coming?"

"Netali" replied, "Well." As "Netali" continued to work on the weapons, Karim walked up to one of the crates filled with completed OA-93s, he picked up one of the guns and proceeded to inspect it.

Removing the magazine, Karim noticed it was empty and asked her, "This gun has no bullets in it. Can you explain why?"

"Netali" began, "The weapons were unloaded when I began. I assume that you would give the weapons to your clients, but they would supply the ammunition. And you wouldn't want to risk me trying an assault on you and your copatriots."

"Perceptive, Netali. But, they are not copatriots. They are associates, comrades. Copatriots sounds too...American."

"What makes you say that? Patriotism is a global concept."

"An American-originated concept. America is a sin on this Earth, the conglomerate it has become. Overconfident, pompous bastards. The world was a very different place before the United States came to be. Admittedly, they are the reason we have come to form, making us believe we can rise up against our colonial masters."

"You sound as if this was merely years ago."

"In the long scope of things, yes, Netali. The United States has been around for less than two hundred forty years. The Earth as we know it has been around for several billion years. But, in those years, America has become far more of a powerhouse, becoming far more powerful and influential than its parent the United Kingdom ever was. Everywhere you go, you see advertisements for Coca Cola and McDonald's. Cinemas carry a selection of predominantly poorly made American action romps and very little local fare. The world pays billions to see Hollywood works but America pays little to see foreign films. This world...it acts as if the United States is the world's only superpower, that everyone else doesn't matter, as if they are second-class citizens, even if they may truly be first-class citizens, that American citizens, regardless of how poor they are, are superior than even the richest Asian man."

"Well, considering the events of the past century, such a statement could be considered true as the United States has only strengthened, especially as a result of World War II."

"You are defending the Americans, are you not?"

"I am merely speaking objectively, Karim. There is plenty of foreign influence on America as much as there is American influence on the rest of the world."

"That is true, Netali. But look at how they depict the history books. The Native Americans, treated as brute savages, were slaughtered by the Americans to make way for their quest for gold and land. And what about the Arabs, generalized so often as terrorists. Of course, the latter was because of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. They made Americans generalize about the Muslim population. In truth, their extremism is a violation of Islam, they are not true Muslims, only monsters with delusions they are serving Mohammed but when they only serve themselves. Waiting for them are no rivers of honey or virgins, but rather torment and hellfire for the crimes they committed, for bastardizing Islam."

"Taking a journey of eternity to Jahannam for violating Mohammad's will, for killing not only innocent non-Muslims but for being responsible for the murder of Muslim believers, a true sin of the Quran."

"And alongside these mistaken believers will be more mistaken believers as well, the soldiers sent to the Middle East to kill them, ending up murdering innocent men, women, and children."

"But is this a quest not for Islam?"

"There are members of our organization who are Christian, Jewish, or of some other faith. We are a globally diverse organization. You seem to have a worldly perspective, Netali. Are you sure that you are committed to our cause?"

"I am, Karim."

As Karim walked out of the vault, he finished, "Get back to work."

"Netali" answered, "Yes, Karim."

* * *

Over back in the States, Gibbs and the MCRT were tracking down their prime suspect in the murder of Lance Corporal John Prink - Vincent Fitzhugh, a gun salesman who deals with automatic weaponry.

McGee asked, "So, why would a gun salesman use his own weapon to kill a person?"

DiNozzo commented, "Maybe he wanted to test out his merchandise. Make sure he had good weapons before his clients flocked in."

Bishop wondered, "So what was Prink's connection with Fitzhugh?"

"Better question, Probie, would be is there a connection?"

McGee then got a brief phone call, and after hanging up, he added, "That was the convention Fitzhugh was supposed to be attending. He left three days ago and nobody's seen him since, so he is again our top suspect."

"Did he come in on a motorcycle?"

"No, Tony. He arrived at the convention with a fellow attendee but left on a taxi. I'm calling the taxi dispatcher to see where Fitzhugh went after leaving the convention."

As McGee got on the phone, Bishop began running Prink and Fitzhugh's phones to see if they ever went in contact with each other.

The probationary agent noted, "Strange."

DiNozzo asked, "What?"

"Fitzhugh, his records only go back a few years. In fact, half of these records were made up long after they supposedly happened, like his birth certificate, high school transcript, and college diploma."

"Do you think what I'm thinking?"

"Yes. Fitzhugh is lying about his identity, it's a cover. Now, we have to find out who he really is. And who would be able to create such a fake identity?"

Gibbs walked in and added, "ATF. They're coming online in MTAC in five to give us what they know about Fitzhugh."

McGee got off the phone and revealed, "I just got off the phone with the taxi dispatcher. Fitzhugh's cab went to Yorktown's town hall, where he then caught a bus."

"Which bus, McGee?"

"It went to Annapolis. He got off at the bus station and then rented another taxi to bring him to his apartment twenty miles outside of town, where he got his motorcycle and checked into a small motel in Anne Arundel's city limits. The DeCormier Lodge."

"DiNozzo, McGee, go to the DeCormier Lodge. Bishop, with me to MTAC."

* * *

Up in MTAC, Gibbs and Bishop waited for the ATF agent working on Fitzhugh's case to come on to explain why all of his life information was formulated within only a few years.

Waiting with them was Director Vance, who would attempt to coordinate peaceful inter-agency cooperation, though knowing Gibbs, it was much more difficult than it sounded on paper.

Finally, a figure came up on the MTAC screen. The man introduced himself, _"Hello, Agent Gibbs. I'm ATF Agent Hugo Malfoy. Now, what is this about?"_

"Vincent Fitzhugh. What do you have on him?"

The Hispanic male, who seemed in his early-thirties, began, _"We suspect that Fitzhugh migrated to the United States from the United Kingdom five years ago and began running guns here, but we don't have any proof of his identity beforehand. Opening the gun store with Eric Marshall was most likely a cover so he could smuggle in his weapons and sell them on the black market."_

"Where do these guns come from?"

_"We don't have a definitive location yet, but we suspect they come from Latin America. We can't be sure until we acquire the shipping manifests. Our problem is that we haven't gotten close enough to the books to determine if our theory is correct."_

"Get a warrant."

_"We need to pin him to the sales before we can go in, and he keeps the books on him at all times. It is impossible to take them from him."_

"Then plant a deep cover agent inside."

_"We've tried that and were forced to extract before it cost them his life."_

"Agent Malfoy, who was your agent inside?"

_"Miss Bishop, is it? He is currently on another assignment halfway across the country, one that requires complete radio silence."_

"So, what you're telling us is that you're stonewalling us."

_"It may appear that way, Director..."_

"That's exactly what it is, Malfoy!"

_"Alright, fine. What is it you want to know?"_

"First off, Lance Corporal John Prink. Was he connected to Fitzhugh?"

_"We sent him undercover to investigate the black market gun sales at Marshall Home Defense. Somebody tipped off the sellers that Prink was a snitch and they were close to killing him. We got him out, but barely. That was six months ago. What does this have to do now?"_

"Prink's dead. Gunned down with an OA-93 within the past thirty-six hours."

_"Jesus Christ. You think Fitzhugh gunned him down at Pendleton?"_

"Pendleton? Base records say he was on his way to Augusta to see his parents with a detour in DC when he was killed. Care to explain, Hugo?"

 _"I can't explain that. We had arranged him to be stationed at Pendleton as we suspected somebody was using shipments of office supplies as a means of smuggling weapons. That's all I know."_ With that, the screen on MTAC shut off and Gibbs and Bishop walked out. After they got out, Gibbs got a call on his phone, to which he responded, "Yeah, Abs? I'm on my way."

* * *

Down in the evidence garage, Abby was examining Prink's car to see if there was anything unusual. As Gibbs came down, Abby began, "Gibbs...Gibbs...Gibbs!"

"Whatdya got, Abs?"

"Okay, I've been examining the contents of Prink's car and I found some things you definitely are going to be interested in."

"Like what?"

Dragging Gibbs over to the car, Abby revealed, "I found these two tickets in the glove compartment." As Gibbs read the tickets, he noted, "Tickets to Prague, the Czech Republic. Registered to Prink's parents?"

"Yep. I ran the order for the two tickets, and they were purchased on deposit by Prink less than ten minutes after he landed."

"How much did they cost?"

"Forty two thousand one hundred seventy three dollars. Way more than a Lance Corporal's pay grade. Wilkes, of course."

"Yep, I found the entirety of the cash in the trunk. Looks like the killer didn't off him for the cash."

Then, Ducky walked into the evidence garage with a folder and explained, "I think I know what Prink was doing."

"Yeah, Duck?"

"Prink knew that he was targeted by Fitzhugh for being an ATF snitch, so his parents would be a logical target to draw him out. He needed to get them out of the country as fast as possible."

"Which explains the forty-five grand. Prink really did come here to get the money to buy the tickets."

"And I ran the key to Wilkes's apartment. Guess whose fingerprint is on it."

"Prink. He found out where Wilkes was and called in the forty-five grand."

Then, Gibbs got another call, and he answered, "Yeah, Gibbs."

_"Boss, we've got Fitzhugh. He was very uncooperative, but we got him and his motorcycle."_

"Good work, DiNozzo. Bring him back along with the bike. Did you find the OA-93?"

_"McGee found it. Dumped into a river about two miles from the motel."_

* * *

Once DiNozzo and McGee brought Fitzhugh, in handcuffs, to interrogation, Gibbs quickly sat down to begin.

Fitzhugh insisted, "I want my lawyer."

"Yeah, I bet you do, considering you're going to be charged with first degree murder and arms dealing."

"Murder? Who do you think I murdered?"

Gibbs grabbed a picture of Prink and showed it to Fitzhugh, "Lance Corporal John Prink, or as you may have known him Jeb Malone. You found out ATF tried to get close to your operation and then you killed him."

"No, that's not what it is."

"Then, really, explain it to me."

"My name isn't Vincent Fitzhugh. It's a deep cover alias created so I could investigate the black market smuggling ring. My real name is ATF Agent Russell O'Leary and I'm investigating Marshall."

"Marshall? Your supervisor didn't tell us that."

"Like I said, this is deep cover - I haven't been O'Leary in over a year. ATF got a tip that a known arms dealer had immigrated to the United States from Britain and was planning on setting up shop. We determined that Marshall matched the description of our arms dealer and I was sent to investigate him."

"Did you get evidence that Marshall was the arms dealer?"

"Yes, but I needed to find where the guns came from. That part isn't as clear."

"Yeah, as OA-93s are rather American-made weapons."

"From what I've figured out, Agent Gibbs, the weapons were sent to another country, converted to full-auto, and sent back here. And not only the OA-93, they've also sent him Kalashnikovs, RPGs, land mines, everything necessary to form a home-grown militia."

"You ever met the seller?"

"No. Marshall gets the guns from a storage facility thirty miles away. As for John Prink, we sent him in to try to buy one of the weapons. Unfortunately, Marshall got suspicious and we had to abort. He sells in bulk, not one weapon at a time. It's almost as if he's holding the weapons for someone."

"That's because he is. Where are his damn books?"

"He keeps them at his house in a secure vault. Electronic with a passcode and thumbprint required. He showed it to me once."

* * *

Back in Pakistan, Ziva had almost finished converting the OA-93 assault rifles from semi-automatic to fully-automatic on Karim's orders. It had been close to fifteen hours since she started, and while it wasn't _that_ hard, it was extremely tedious work. This was grunt work, or as DiNozzo would put it, "probie work".

She was hired as a bomb maker, but she was currently converting weapons, a task rather far suited from her cover. Then again, according to the Vizier, this was a test of loyalty, a test to see if she had the patience and the endurance to be a member of the cell.

As she continued working, her stomach began growling furiously as she had not eaten anything in close to twenty-four hours - the last thing she ate was on the flight to Pakistan, and even that had been light.

Probably, once she had finished her task, she would be taken to have something to eat (and drink). They could not possibly expect her to be able to work forever without food or water, especially the latter as this was a literal desert she was in and it was very hot. Not to mention, she was very tired from being awake for close to eighteen hours non-stop. Now, she had to get some sleep and sustenance soon or she'd lose it.

As she began finishing up the rifles, Karim then came back in. "Netali" asked, "Are you here to check up on me again, Karim?"

"Yes. You have been in here for over twelve hours. How much work have you completed?"

"I am almost finished, Karim. Just a few more rifles to go."

"Impressive, few people can finish as fast as you have. Come, Netali."

"Don't you want me to finish?"

"No. We have others to finish the work. This, as what you may have to come to suspect, was merely a test."

"And did I pass?"

"This one, but you have several more to come. But first, I imagine you must be exhausted. Don't lie to me about this."

"I am worn out, I need sustenance."

"Follow me." As Karim walked away, "Netali" followed him out of the vault, soon seeing the long hallway that went from the elevator to the armory. She saw several guards armed with modernized AK-47 rifles securely around the armory, making sure that no intruders came in.

Reaching the elevator, Karim and "Netali" walked in. Karim pressed a button and the elevator began to rise.

She commented, "High tech elevator."

"This makes traveling through the facility much simpler considering how many levels underground we are."

"How many are we?"

"That much I'm not telling you yet, Netali. Once you further pass the tests, you will see more and more of the facility."

"How many people live here?"

"We have around five thousand people living here, the vast majority of them male, but we also have women and children loyal to our cause. Of course, the vast majority of our members reside in other bases across the globe."

"How many bases?"

"A lot." Then, the elevator door opened and the duo walked out of the elevator. Proceeding into what looked like a dining room, "Netali" and Karim took seats at one of the tables, sitting across from each other as two plates of food went in front of them. Both had a tortilla with rice, sauced vegetables, and a light cream, and then a cup of water.

"Eat up, Netali." Immediately, she took a bite out of her tortilla, savoring the food she hadn't had in about a day.

* * *

Back in Washington DC, Gibbs, the team, and Agent O'Leary loaded up as they prepared to search Eric Marshall's home and business for illegal arms and his books. Bishop asked, "So, who's going where?"

Gibbs explained, "Bishop, you, DiNozzo, and O'Leary are going to the store. McGee and I will check his house."

McGee retrieved a document from the printer and announced, "Okay, got the warrants here."

"Good." Gibbs grabbed one of the warrants as O'Leary grabbed the other. They needed to find proof that the guns were there.

With warrants in hand, the five proceeded to head down to the garage and down to the cars. McGee got into the passenger seat of Gibbs's car while DiNozzo took the driver's seat of another car as they headed off to investigate Marshall's house and store.

"McGee, his address."

"Okay boss, he lives in a small house over in Melfa, Virginia."

With that, both cars drove off to Accomack County, Virginia, where Marshall lived and worked.

Once Gibbs and McGee arrived at the house, the two ran up towards the front door, waiting on either side of it. McGee yelled, "Eric Marshall! NCIS!"

When they got no answer inside, Gibbs kicked the door down, and with their SIG-Sauer P228's in hand, the two swept inside for signs of Marshall or for evidence relating to his suspected arms trading.

McGee went down into the basement as Gibbs swept the kitchen and living room. After several minutes, McGee shouted, "Clear."

Gibbs replied, "Marshall's here." Immediately, McGee ran upstairs to the living room, where Gibbs was standing over a chair. The tech-savvy agent asked, "You found Marshall?"

"In the chair." Heading towards the chair, McGee saw Eric Marshall with a barrage of bullet holes in his body.

"Think we can rule out suicide, boss. I found weapon racks downstairs, all of which are empty. I also saw Marshall's safe. Safe to say that the ATF was right in suspecting Marshall was an arms dealer."

"Very safe. Whoever killed him didn't hold back. Looks like another OA-93 was used and all rounds hit."

"And I found his motorcycle here, a very new model. You think Marshall was reckless?"

"Yep, and whoever he was holding the weapons for killed him." McGee stared at Gibbs in shock as Gibbs simply looked at the body.

 **Foof**. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, as for the scene where Karim and Ziva discuss America and the "cause", I tried to get inside of the head of a terrorist, and I wasn't entirely sure if I succeeded. I don't know any terrorists (at least I don't think I do...and I certainly don't want to), but I used logical arguments (or at least as reasonable as an "average American" could conceive and taking modern history into account).
> 
> We've still got a lot more to come, and next time, we'll have a little visit from our friends over at the Office of Special Projects. And eventually, we'll also see the New Orleans team in action. Plus recurring characters such as Agents Borin and Fornell.


	5. On the Goat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the MCRT investigates the death of an arms dealer, OSP catches wind of a smuggler deep in Afghanistan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I wanted to create a Ziva that was both strong and vulnerable, primarily because while independent, she is emotionally shaken because of her own actions. As for Karim, she will end up interacting with him for most of the story, and he is pretty much devoted to the cause and rather intelligent.
> 
> And as for the sometimes lengthy gaps, I think that it serves to help me stay behind the series - what that means is I can adjust my plans for the story's future, so if a character is, say alive in season 13, I can't kill him in this story as it's still season 11. Actually, this is the big issue for writing fanfics based on still-running shows, but for say, a show like The Simpsons, it runs on primarily negative continuity so for the most part, what happens in one episode won't affect another, so a fanfic wouldn't be substantially changed by new episodes. Regardless, the fact that NCIS is such a long runner makes writing a fanfic that adheres perfectly to its continuity is a bit difficult - Teen Titans is easier because the show is long over, so anything goes.
> 
> For the new characters this chapter (characters from the NCIS OSP office), Kensi = Kensi Byle, Nell = Nell Jones, Hetty = Operations Manager Henrietta Lange, and Granger = Deputy Director Owen Granger. The others (Callen, Sam, Deeks, and Eric) will eventually appear much later on in the story.
> 
> And as for a reference of time, this chapter takes place in the middle of February 2014, which would be after the NCIS episode "Bulletproof" and also before the NCIS: Los Angeles episode "Tuhon", so Kensi is still in Afghanistan and yet to encounter the White Ghost. At least, this is according to my interpretation of the show's timeline.
> 
> Now, let's continue the story.

**Foof. Ziva stares at Karim and the Vizier wide-eyed in confusion.**

In Afghanistan, Kensi is currently watching Agent Savatino for the upteenth time in the past few weeks, suspecting that he was the "White Ghost" she had been assigned to terminate. Eyeing him from her binoculars, she found he was on a routine patrol.

While it seemed like a waste, she needed to know just what was routine for him so she would know what to expect for something non-ordinary, i.e. if he is meeting with his Taliban associates. For the past three months, she had been residing in Afghanistan following an abrupt reassignment there from Los Angeles, and just after she and fellow team member LAPD Liasion Marty Deeks had tried to get a balance in order with their blossoming relationship. Once she got him, her assignment was finished and she could return to OSP.

Continuing to watch him, she heard her handler calling for her on the comm-link. Kensi answered, "Blye."

On the other end of the line was Granger, who said, _"What do you see out there?"_

Kensi explained, "Nothing much. Just Savatino. No White Ghost."

_"When you're done with your patrol, return back to base."_

"Roger that." Almost immediately, Kensi prepared to pack up and return to base. However, as she turned away from Savatino, she noticed someone heading close to the vicinity. Suspecting it may in fact be a Taliban operative and is there to meet Savatino, Kensi went to prone and pulled out her sniper rifle, a customized DPMS TAC20, sighting the operative in her scope.

However, despite her hopes, Savatino was nowhere near the man, meaning that he may have been meeting someone else.

After walking around for a few seconds, the man then proceeded to walk away from the scene. However, Kensi was able to grab facial recording of the man's face. Who the hell was that guy?

Now, she'd have to get it back to Camp Chapman and have Eric and Nell identify just who was there, and why he was there. Something told her that he was not a serviceman.

* * *

Meanwhile, back stateside, the MCRT team was investigating the death of Eric Marshall, the owner of a gun store who had been illegally dealing guns on the black market, specifically automatic weapons such as the OA-93 assault rifle used to commit a murder.

Taking photos of the corpse, DiNozzo noted, "This is very messy. Looks just like Lance Corporal Prink's body."

Bishop noted, "But these bullets look much bigger than a five fifty six."

Ducky, who was looking at the body, commented, "Indeed, Eleanor, it is. These look more like musket rounds than cartridges. It wasn't until the late nineteenth century that gun manufacturers began to use bullets instead of the custom-made balls. This resulted in much better accuracy and range, so infantrymen could better hit the targets they aimed at. All three rounds hit in varying places. The first two both hit in the abdomen, but the kill shot landed in his superior vena cava. I'd say he's been dead for about five hours."

Palmer then brought up, "Do you think three people shot him or did one person shoot him three times?"

"That, Mr. Palmer, is a question that our capable Miss Sciuto will be able to answer. While I'd believe he was shot with multiple guns, these rounds look much more as if they came from the same gun. Then again, how could that same gun hit in three different places, and wouldn't Mister Marshall be able to put up a fight while his assailant was reloading?"

"That is another question as there are no signs of defensive wounds. It's like he was gunned down by firing squad. But there are no abrasions suggesting he was bound and also nothing that suggested he was running away, and if he was running, it'd be more and more likely that the shooter or shooters wouldn't have hit him. This also meant that perhaps there were a couple of bullets that missed."

Gibbs then walked into the room and said, "It looks like a huge portion of his fence was taken, at least eight planks and in its place was a huge damn piece of wood. Either there were more bullets on the planks or he didn't finish his fence."

McGee came in to explain, "I talked to the neighbors. They weren't at home around the time of the shooting, but they did say that Marshall did have his fence complete, and he also had a sundial, which has gone missing. They also said that he was a bit of a loner, never coming to any of the events around the block and never had any company."

Ducky added, "I do suppose that would have been ideal for him, especially considering that he was a black market arms dealer. If people came over, they might have found much of his merchandise."

Bishop asked, "Then, if there was merchandise here? Where the hell is it?"

Gibbs bluntly stated, "Gone. Killer took it."

"Oh. Hopefully, the ledger can give us any idea of who killed him."

"That's going to be a bit of an issue, Bishop. The vault was opened shortly after Marshall died and the ledger was badly torn up with quite a few pages being removed. The killer must have been covering his tracks. Fortunately, we did acquire the address of the storage facility."

"McGee, take DiNozzo to the facility. Seize all weapons you find. Give me a goddamned name for who sold the weapons to Marshall, the middleman."

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Los Angeles, Nell was in the Ops room of the Office of Special Projects analyzing the footage Kensi had sent her. It was late, already after ten at night local time, and the rest of the team had already called a night, even Eric, who had some sort of gathering to go to. Only Hetty and herself were still in the building.

Running the video through facial recognition was going to take a while as it was shot at a considerable distance away, making the image blurry and at a poor angle, almost as if the man knew he was being watched. Even if he didn't know, it was definitely a reasonable expectation that he suspected the direction could have provided a good look at his face, so it was obvious he did not want to be seen.

But what would the man be doing there in the first place if there was a chance of him getting caught? That's it - he was casing the route. If he got caught, then that route would be a no-go, but what was the route for? Smuggling, obviously. And judging by the proximity of Camp Chapman, the man most likely came in from Pakistan as Camp Chapman was only around ten miles away from the Pakistani border.

Then, what would somebody be smuggling from Pakistan to Afghanistan? Oil, iron? No, Afghanistan has enough of those already - it'd be like selling sand to a beach. More likely it'd be grains, textiles, cement, or cutlery. But what about if it was the other way, from Afghanistan to Pakistan? Opium, dates, pomegranates, emeralds, or cotton. Yeah, it was more likely that things were being smuggled _into_ Pakistan, but what was it? And besides, what was being smuggled may not even originate in Afghanistan.

Only by finding out the identity of the individual could give the intelligent intelligence analyst an idea of what was being smuggled, and then she could tell Kensi. But first, she had to de-blur the image and maybe she could find some sort of distinct tell of the person's nationality; while she assumed he was Pakistani, she worked for NCIS - things were always bound to get strange (and complicated), very fast. For example, a recent case started with the investigation into a botched raid on a cartel hideout and then sent the team to investigate an elite high school.

Of course, blurring was not an issue for her as she quickly removed the blur from Kensi's footage, revealing the man - one that was approximately five foot six, one hundred thirty pounds with long black hair and what appeared to be a long black scar across his left arm, which was also missing its pinky. What soon surprised Nell was that the man wasn't Pakistani - he was Japanese. This was where everything turned weird as why would a Japanese man be smuggling into Pakistan?

The scar was a good place to look, and immediately she delved into the Japanese Criminal Records to see if there was a man with a long black scar ever admitted into a Japanese prison.

By eleven at night, she had found twenty-seven men with long black scars that had been admitted into Japanese prisons, of those twenty had the scar on their left arm. Then, nine of those men were still alive, and then just three men had a missing pinky on their left hand. Cross checking the estimated height and weight to the three left only one person fitting the criteria.

Nell said to herself, "Ichirou Makimoto." That man was the very man Kensi saw - a thirty-nine year old originating from Kyoto, Makimoto had already developed a reputation as a smuggler, being arrested four times for drug trafficking in the country (and escaping all four times). In that prison time, Makimoto had his pinky cut off in an accident while the lengthy black scar came from when he accidentally dissatisfied a client and got assaulted with a katana. Makimoto was lucky that just his arm got struck and not his chest, and then had the scar dyed black for some unknown reason.

Now, she had to tell Kensi, but then again, Hetty was also there and was basically omnipotent - regardless of what happened, Hetty would find out Nell went behind her back one way or another, so it was probably better that Nell told Hetty first about Makimoto to hopefully minimize the potential fallout - she did not want to risk Hetty discovering her snooping behind her back again, such as when she was looking into a man Callen had been investigating three years back.

So, armed with the information, she walked down to Hetty's office, intending to tell Hetty the news first before she found out by other means. Finding Hetty wasn't there, Nell then moved to the dressing room, where Hetty was working on a dress, which was clearly for someone taller than the two of them.

Nell asked, "So, who's the dress for?"

Hetty responded, "It's for Natalie Portman to wear at the Academy Awards."

"You do Oscar dresses?"

"Of course I do. This is the third one I've done this season - I've already done Naomi Watts and Jane Fonda. I've been in the costume design business for decades, my dear. So, what brings you down here, my dear?"

Nell began, "Kensi acquired footage of an unknown man passing by Camp Chapman and she asked me to identify him."

"Did you get a match?"

"Yes. Ichirou Makimoto, a known Japanese smuggler. From what this means, it looks like he's trying to smuggle something from Afghanistan into Pakistan."

"Inform Agent Blye. I will contact Director Granger about this, and the two will investigate Mister Makimoto. By the way, why did you decide to share this information with me before Blye?"

"I didn't want you to find out later. I thought it'd be better if it came from my mouth, than you discovering it."

* * *

Back over on the East Coast, DiNozzo and McGee arrived at the suspected storage facility Marshall was using to buy his black market merchandise. It was a small rental facility with only two storage units, which thereby made it easier for him to do his trades and keeping the guns out of view of suspicious customers.

Getting out of the car, DiNozzo said, "I'm sure ATF is going to have a field day when they see just what Marshall has in his unit."

McGee noted, "If there's anything left. Somebody went through his stuff and got the address and removed several pages from the ledger. Obviously they don't want any evidence that links them to Marshall, so we may be too late."

Strolling up to the facility, DiNozzo realized, "Maybe not necessarily" as he saw three men unloading crates from Marshall's unit. Pulling out their SIG-Sauer pistols, the two ran up to behind a fallen piece of concrete to examine who was present. They saw the men were each armed with a Remington R5, which while not the same weapon that Marshall used to kill Lance Corporal Prink, still indicated that they were well-armed.

DiNozzo nodded to McGee and the junior of the two field agents yelled, "NCIS! Don't move!" The immediate reaction of the three was to open fire on the duo with their automatics. Fortunately, they were hidden behind concrete, but they didn't have their bulletproof vests on. That was a major mistake and Gibbs was bound to chew them out for that once they returned. After a couple of seconds, they heard the distinct sound of guns clicking empty, as automatics burn through ammunition faster than fire burns through paper.

With that, DiNozzo and McGee returned fire. DiNozzo's first five rounds landed in the chest of one of the shooters, killing him, while McGee got one round into another shooter's shoulder and foot, incapacitating them for the time being, leaving just one shooter to go.

As DiNozzo moved up, McGee made sure to cover him if the third person opened fire with his R5, which by now had been reloaded and ready for fire. Once he spotted DiNozzo, the third man opened fire on him, quickly forcing him to run for cover or else have his body shredded with bullets.

McGee opened fire with his SIG-Sauer, hoping to force the shooter to back off, but it did little as the third must have been in cover, or wearing body armor. Indeed, that proved to be true as the third shooter was wearing full-on body armor, and his R5 had a Beta-C magazine, which meant he had a lot more than thirty rounds to dispense. And based on what else he could see, the shooter had at least one more R5 ready to go, so he had over a hundred rounds ready to fire at them.

With a blaze of automatic fire, McGee and DiNozzo were forced to stay behind cover, unable to even fire a shot without risking being torn apart by automatic fire. And even if they could, their 9mm rounds would not even do much more than stun him. They needed something a lot stronger to pierce his body armor.

DiNozzo then had an idea and began running across the side of the building the shooter couldn't see. The shooter at that moment had no idea of what DiNozzo was trying, so his attention was focused on McGee and gunning him down.

Reaching the other side of the storage facility, DiNozzo quickly ducked into one of the open doors, hoping to find a better weapon to take down the shooter. However, as soon as he entered the facility, the shooter opened fire on the other side, trying to hit DiNozzo, which left McGee an opening to open fire on the third shooter from the rear.

That didn't do much better than firing at his front, as every part of his body was clad in armor, even his head and legs. Still, that gave DiNozzo time to search the storage facility for any high-caliber weapons. There were plenty of OA-93s (which was presumably what they were loading), but he needed something better than a 5.56mm round to get through that insane body armor. And then, they had to get the wounded suspect before he was killed or got away.

Suddenly, the armored shooter ran out of ammunition for his first R5 and then grabbed his other one to resume fire on the two federal agents. Before he could fire a shot, several new gunshots rang out, piercing the gunman's body armor. The gunman slumped against the wall, obviously wounded at least, before collapsing and dying.

McGee ran up to the storage facility to grab the only survivor that was still alive as DiNozzo came out, holding a Barrett M107 sniper rifle. The senior field agent noted, "It's amazing what people store in their storage facilities."

* * *

Returning with their injured suspect to NCIS (as well as having the two deceased brought to the morgue for Ducky to examine), DiNozzo and McGee watched as Gibbs began to interrogate the suspect.

In observation, DiNozzo asked, "Who were those guys? Why were they there?"

Then, Bishop came into the observation room and held three folders, explaining, "Abby got prints on the three shooters. The first shooter was Esteban Rojas, a Brazilian immigrant and hired gun. Metro suspects him to be involved in two unsolved robberies, one of which resulted in a fatality. The second shooter, the armored one, is Kim Sung-Li, a South Korean with ties to the Korean mob and mercenary for hire. The man in interrogation is Yusef al-Furlani, an immigrant from Syria. He has no criminal record, but Metro does suspect him to be an arms dealer."

McGee continued, "Just like Marshall."

Meanwhile, in the interrogation room, Gibbs asked al-Furlani, "So, why were you at the storage facility stealing guns?"

al-Furlani chuckled, "I wasn't stealing guns. I was loading crates onto a truck."

"Filled with guns."

"What makes you so certain about that, Agent...?"

"Gibbs. The man whose storage unit you robbed was an arms dealer with a massive supply of illegal guns. Okay then, why were you loading crates onto a truck?"

"It was a job. Some guy hired me to help him load crates from a storage facility into his truck. He said that the owner died and now he was the owner of all the crates."

"Did this guy have a name, or a face?"

"He called me over the phone. Offered me $1,000 in cash to help him move the crates."

"Is that why you were armed with a machine gun?"

"He said that it could get dangerous, so he gave us weapons."

"Dangerous against federal agents? So, you shot at my people?"

"We panicked." Gibbs kept a slight chuckle as he clearly knew al-Furlani was lying and withholding information about what he was actually doing there.

And behind the glass, Bishop asked, "They were armed with assault rifles, but why were they stealing crates filled with OA-93s? They had better firepower than what they were taking."

McGee surmised, "Maybe the OA-93s are for the people they stole it for. They're compact automatics, which means they are much easier hidden. Perfect for sneak attacks."

* * *

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, Kensi was checking her e-mail to see if Nell had any results on the man she saw outside of the base. As she began pulling up Nell's message, Granger came up to her and explained, "The man you saw, his name is Ichirou Makimoto, a Japanese smuggler who was arrested four times for drug trafficking in Japan."

Kensi asked the Assistant Director, "How did you know?"

"Henrietta told me. Nell told her so as to avoid her wrath if she told you first and thereby going behind her back."

"Makes sense. So, are we going to investigate?"

"We move out in five. What we need to figure out is where the deal will go down. Makimoto was walking by Camp Chapman, which meant he was scouting for a route for the trade."

Before Kensi could ask again, Granger was gone. As such, she grabbed her sniper rifle and proceeded to head out towards transportation. Now, she had absolutely no clue what was about to happen next. Would they have luck and find Makimoto with crates full of smuggled goods, or would they be on a wild goose chase?

Thinking about what Granger had said about him being arrested multiple times in Japan meant that Makimoto was on the lam, and he would only surface if he was scouting a route for a very lucrative trade. The cargo must be extremely valuable and likely hard to move. That's where Camp Chapman would come in - with airplanes coming in and out of the base, they might be able to place the goods onboard and have them sent towards the States.

As she hopped into a Humvee, Granger walked over with a map of the region and a red marker. Circling where Kensi was on patrol yesterday, Granger explained, "This is where you spotted Makimoto, less than ten miles from the Pakistani border." Circling the location of the camp, he continued, "They are obviously trying to avoid detection, so they won't go within a two mile radius of the base."

"That still leaves a lot of ground to cover, and who says that Makimoto's new associates are even coming from Pakistan?"

"Do we have any major footholds in Pakistan? Anyway, there are undeniably groups in northern Pakistan that would need to move things in and out of their location, and around here would be their best bet to do so. Makimoto wouldn't be here if he was smuggling for the Afghanis."

"Then, how would they even get their goods here? It's literally hundreds of miles, if not even more, from the next closest airport, and even with a vehicle, they wouldn't have enough fuel to make it to the border without being detected."

"You said it yourself, Blye. The next closest airport is hundreds of miles away. Their contraband is coming from airplanes arriving here. So, then they likely will have twelve miles or so to go to get from here to return to Pakistan." Drawing a red line from the circle surrounding the base to the border, Granger continued, "This will be their route to move the goods. Two C-130 cargo planes landed less than half an hour ago, which means the smugglers have their contraband already. Going on horseback, it will take them around an hour to get from base to the border. If we move now, we'll intercept Makimoto and his contraband."

As Granger hopped into the driver's seat, Kensi asked, "So, are we going alone?"

"I've been speaking with several Afghani Border Police and they'll provide limited support. Now, let's go." Closing the door and buckling his seatbelt, Granger turned the keys and the Humvee took off towards the intended location of the interception.

Within twenty minutes, they had reached the likely route taken by the smugglers for the intercept. Unfortunately, the smugglers were so close they began opening fire on the Humvee. Kensi and Granger immediately got out of the Humvee to dodge their fire. Grabbing her sniper rifle, Kensi looked at the smugglers. They had around fifty men, armed with AK-type rifles as well as two Type 69 RPG launchers and a DShK machine gun mounted on a wagon, which incidentally was the same wagon with the cargo.

Opening fire with her TAC20, Kensi took out two smugglers before being forced back behind the cover of the Humvee. Granger grabbed an M4A1 stored in the Humvee, racking the action before taking aim at the machine gunner. Two clean shots from the Assistant Director put him down for the count.

However, they were still outgunned and severely outnumbered. Their only chance now laid with the ABP to arrive and force the smugglers to surrender.

"How long until support gets here?"

"A few minutes." Just after he said that, an RPG flew towards the Humvee, missing the vehicle by mere inches. Kensi responded, "I'm not sure we'll last that long! Fifty people just for one cargo crate. Whatever it is, it better be important!"

With that, Kensi resumed opening fire on the smugglers, thinning their numbers a bit before being forced back behind cover. There were still over thirty hostiles remaining and not enough ammunition to hold them off.

Granger spotted a hostile trying to aim an RPG at them, so he put several bullets in the man's chest, causing him to drop the RPG, just as it fired, quickly killing several of the hostiles. That helped thin the numbers, but it was still a rough fight ahead of them. The Border Police needed to get here soon.

Continuing to open fire and dropping the hostiles, Kensi soon found herself forced to reload. She only had one magazine left, which was twenty rounds, and she doubted Granger had much more than that.

Fortunately, the Afghani Border Patrol soon came on horseback, opening fire with their own AK rifles, gunning down several more of the hostiles. As they turned around, the twenty or so remaining smugglers saw close to two dozen fresh reinforcements coming right at them, forcing them on a mad run towards the border, which quickly put them in the sights of Kensi and Granger.

Cornered, the smugglers surrendered and were promptly taken into custody by the Afghan Border Police, with the exception of Makimoto, who was taken in by Granger and Kensi for interrogation.

After all the smugglers were detained, Kensi and Granger walked over to the crate, intent on finding out just what they caught the smugglers bringing in. Carefully sliding the box off of the wagon, Kensi walked back towards the Humvee to grab a crowbar so they could open the crate.

Tossing the object to Granger, the Assistant Director opened the box. Kensi asked, "What is it?"

Granger pulled out an OA-93 and replied, "Agent Blye, they were bringing weapons into Pakistan."

"Then why did they even need the AKs if they were already getting more weapons?"

Removing the magazine from the gun, Granger revealed, "They didn't have the ammo with them. I doubt they even knew what they were bringing in. Now, we'll see if Makimoto is cooperative enough to tell us about the smuggling."

* * *

Back at the Navy Yard, Gibbs had finished interrogating Yusef al-Furlani, who didn't offer anything particularly useful about who hired him to steal the guns, nor why they were carrying assault rifles that were much better than the guns they were stealing in the first place. But the big thing was that all three of the thieves were of different ethnicities - a Muslim, a Brazilian, and a Korean. Normally, when criminals associate, they go with people of their own ethnicity - Latinos recruit Latinos, blacks recruit blacks, etc. But what person would recruit three different races, and what was their connection?

Hopefully Abby had an answer for him. Walking into Abby's lab, Gibbs asked his typical question, "Whatdya got Abs?"

Abby began, "Well, Gibbs. McGee and I have been running links for any known commonalities between the three gunmen. All three were called from the same payphone in Irvington, Virginia, each about four minutes after the last. Each call lasted just ten seconds, which isn't a lot of time."

"A signal."

"Yeah, but unfortunately, the cameras around the payphone were down for maintenance, so we can't get facial recognition, and the phone was wiped down, so no fingerprints either. Whoever hired them was incredibly clever."

"Do you have any idea as to what killed Marshall?"

Pulling up pictures of the bullets, Abby explained, "Ducky was right that these were musket balls, and man are these big ones. Each bullet has diameter of point eight inches, which explains the massive damage in Marshall's body. I can tell you that these bullets were fired from the same weapon, but how many muskets use 0.8" rounds?"

"Not many. Do you have an ID on the murder weapon?"

"No, Gibbs, I don't. The gun had to have been custom-made to fire that kind of bullet, so unless you can find me an example of the type of weapon, you're out of luck."

"Well, how about any links between the gunmen and Marshall?"

"None there either. None of them knew Marshall on any level. The calls sent to the three gunmen came about three hours after Marshall's death. One thing that has got me confused is, why did Marshall live on an island but kept his contraband on the mainland?"

"The greater the distance, the lower the suspicion, Abs."

"Alright, and one more thing. Each of the three gunmen had the same tattoo, all on the back of their left shoulder. It's a red flame emerging over a blue line with another white flame underneath the blue line all encased in a brown circle. I know my tats, but what this means, I'm not even sure."

* * *

Meanwhile, over in Pakistan, where Ziva was presently undercover as Netali, she was waking up from her sleep. It had been one of her better sleeps in some time, especially considering that a month ago, she was an alcoholic who was more likely to pass out than honestly sleep.

Getting out of her bed, she slipped out of her brown tank top and shorts and replaced them with a light black short-sleeve shirt and a long pair of white shorts that went down below her knees, clothing which she was given by Karim. What she was surprised by was that it fit her, which meant some rather uncomfortable implications were evident with how he determined her size.

Exiting her small room, she went out in search of Karim, who told her to meet him near one of the storage closets. As she approached the closet, she quickly heard Karim and the Vizier in discussion.

"وقد تم ضبط شحنة لدينا من أسلحة قبل أن تتمكن من الحصول على هنا." Apparently, a shipment of weapons they were supposed to get had been seized.

"وبطبيعة الحال كان. أنا لا ينبغي أبدا أن يثق المهرب الياباني." Now, the Vizier was berating himself for trusting a Japanese smuggler, who likely was supposed to be getting the guns to them.

"والأسوأ من ذلك، كان هؤلاء الوكلاء البحرية التي أوقفت شحنة." And another point for NCIS for being the ones responsible for stopping the shipment. He continued, "ووجدوا أيضا عن مورد لدينا في الولايات المتحدة. اللعنة له من أجل الحصول على الاهتمام جلب على نفسه لقتل هذا البحرية في المقام الأول!" Their American arms dealer had gotten NCIS attention by killing a Marine. Ziva gave an unnoticed smile as she heard how NCIS was sabotaging the cell's operations.

"فقد عاشت اكثر فائدة له. هو قد أعطى بالفعل لنا السلاح" Now, she was getting a little worried, now that the Vizier mentioned that they had _the_ weapon, which meant God knows what.

"كم من الوقت حتى نستعملها؟" Now, they planned on use this weapon, but the only question was when. The Vizier then responded, في الوقت المناسب، وكريم. مرة واحدة وقد فعلت" صانع القنابل عملها بالنسبة لنا، وسوف يكون لحظتنا في الإضراب." "Netali" instantly knew that she was going to be a part of a major plan, but the only question was, what was their intention? Staring wide eyed in confusion, Ziva could only hope she was not noticed by Karim or the Vizier.

Shortly afterwards, the Vizier and Karim split ways, with Ziva taking note of what seemed to be a tattoo on the back of the Vizier's left shoulder, which looked like some sort of red flame.

**Foof.**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know this chapter may have left you with a few questions, but they will all be answered in due time (say in a few chapters or so), when things become revealed as to the cell's plan and Ziva's intended role in it.
> 
> Please remember to review.


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